“Take me to my Sisters,” Lhaurel said again.
“Yes, Sister,” Torch-bearer said, bowing low. He gestured curtly and the other archers formed up around her into two long lines. They kept their eyes forward, not looking over at her or out to either side. The torch bearer took up a position in front of Lhaurel at the head of the two lines. “Would you care for me to fetch you a chair, Sister?”
A chair?
“No thank you.”
The man shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable.
“Would you like us to fetch you a steed, perhaps?” he asked.
“I will walk,” Lhaurel said, as calmly as she could muster.
The torch-bearer nodded.
Lhaurel walked along in the middle of the two lines as they approached the tents, physically forcing herself to remain calm. The first part of her plan—and honestly the part which had the greatest chance of going wrong and making the entire gamble completely meaningless—had gone surprisingly well, mostly due to the power of the Seven Sisters’ reputation and Lhaurel’s hair color. But what about when she met with the very women who inspired such terror and ultimate respect? Lhaurel bit the inside of her bottom lip, not wanting to ruin the imperious image she was trying to convey.
They strode through the camp, more red-clad archers giving way before them, not one pausing to make mockery of her or protest the group’s movement through their ranks. The only thing Lhaurel’s little procession moved for was an Earth Ward. They passed around him, pushing aside a group of red-clad soldiers who were in the process of getting a fire going using a wood that Lhaurel didn’t recognize and that had a sharp, spicy scent.
Lhaurel ignored the throng of bodies, the smells of so many people in the same place. They walked, clambering up the broken stones as if they were steps, as more red-clad soldiers passed down to one side, moving out onto the sands and setting up tents on either side of those already erected. Lhaurel had never seen so many people in one place.
She turned her thoughts back to the reasons she was doing this. Images of Shallee and her baby passed through her mind, of Khari, Gavin, Farah, Tieran, Makin Qays, Fahkiri. They danced through her mind and strengthened her as she walked.
Eventually, they reached the top of the stand of rocks, now in full darkness except for the torch held before them. A massive pavilion of red material stood there, a stream of people coming in and out. Half a dozen massive Orinai stood outside it, some with blond hair and others with dark or grey, but each as large and tall as Samsin or Nikanor had been.
Lhaurel steeled herself against the cold and the shivers which threatened to creep up her spine. A strange white powder covered the ground, which crunched underfoot and soaked through her boots.
She’d long since been forced to draw on her powers to keep up her strength. She felt each of the Earth Wards and Storm Wards, but what was more, a deep, powerful perversion emanated from the pavilion. The feeling of wrongness was so profound that Lhaurel had to swallow hard to keep her stomach from emptying itself.
The procession stopped, but acting on instinct, Lhaurel continued forward, passing the torch-bearer without a word. It seemed like the right thing to do. One of the massive, blond-haired Storm Wards moved to stop her, white energy crackling up his arm in instant. In a tight grey shirt, pristine white vest, and black leather pants stretched tight over a muscular frame, the Orinai mystic cut an imposing figure.
Lhaurel didn’t stop. Instead, she gathered her courage and raised her gaze to meet the man’s eye, pointedly flipping her curly red hair over one shoulder with one hand. Color drained from the Storm Ward’s face in a rush, like the flesh stripped off a carcass by a pack of sailfins. He stepped back, muttering something in the language Lhaurel didn’t understand. She kept her gaze on him until he dropped his eyes to the ground and fell into a bow. Some of the others, noticing his movements, fell into bows of their own when they noticed her. Only one of them stood up long enough to have a look of confusion cross his face. Nodding once, Lhaurel strode forward and, pushing aside the canvas door, stepped into the lighted pavilion, steeling herself against the feeling of revulsion spinning in her stomach.
The room was lit by over a dozen lanterns suspended from the poles which held the massive pavilion up. Lhaurel was immediately struck by the warmth and cleanliness within, a stark contrast to the freezing cold outside. The room was empty, save for three extremely tall, thin women with blood-red hair sitting in high-backed chairs directly across from her. At least, Lhaurel thought they were women.
Blood-red hair hung from scalps so white they appeared almost like bone. Their eyes shone with a deep reddish luster, though they were varied in color in the center. Their features were young, though the eyes and expressions hinted that the appearance was deceiving. Though they sat, they were all tall, taller than Lhaurel even by several feet, their figures curvy and voluptuous.
Upon seeing Lhaurel, the center woman smiled, revealing teeth that had been sharpened to points. She tapped a long wooden walking staff that lay across her chair with one long, blood-red nail. Lhaurel couldn’t help but shudder.
“So,” the center Sister said, “it is true.”
Lhaurel wondered that they were speaking her tongue.
The Sister on the left nodded and made a gesture with one hand. A short man, clad only in a white vest and leggings, appeared from another door in the pavilion’s canvas just behind the Sisters. “Send everyone away,” she said. “We will have privacy. Remove everyone from hearing range.”
The servant scurried away.
Lhaurel licked her lips, her throat and mouth a barren desert. She cleared her throat. “I have come to negotiate on behalf of my people.”
“Your people?” the Sister on the right asked, laughing. “Oh child, your people are before you.”
The other two Sisters laughed as well. Lhaurel heard movement from outside as those near the pavilion moved away from it, as instructed. A bead of sweat dripped down Lhaurel’s forehead and slid passed her ear.
“The Rahuli,” Lhaurel said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “I have come to bargain for their lives.”
“They are of no consequence, child,” the center Sister said. “Tell us, have you been having dreams?”
Dreams?
Lhaurel struggled to form cogent thoughts. They hadn’t killed her yet, had even seemed to have expected her.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” Lhaurel said, playing for more time as her mind slowly worked over the information she had available. “You seem to have been expecting me?”
“Expecting? No, I wouldn’t say that at all. Did we hope we’d find you when we came? Yes. Why else would we have taken an entire month on this wretched journey? We left this place over a thousand years ago, left it to rot within its own decay and mildew as it turned from the true Progressions. Why would we have come back, if not to find you again?”
Lhaurel blinked, more confused than ever. They’d known she’d be here? A thousand years? What were they talking about? Hadn’t Nikanor and Samsin been surprised to find her here?
“Now look, you’ve gone and confused her, Sellia,” the Sister on the right said. “Of course she doesn’t know anything about that. You can’t really expect the slaves to remember anything at all, can you?”
The Sister on the left snorted and Sellia, the center Sister, frowned and narrowed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. She stands before us radiating with the power of the Sisters. She is Elyana’s newest incarnation. We must take her home.”
“Agreed,” the two other Sisters said together.
“We will teach her our ways, return her to the fold,” Sellia said with a smile of pointed teeth. “She will renew her Progression and replace the sitter.” Her deep, blue eyes glinted in the lamplight. “Let us bind her.”
“Wait!” Lhaurel said, a note of terror creeping into her voice as she sensed all three of the women reaching for their power, a vast reservoir of strength flowing through them t
hat made anything she’d channeled seem like a spit in the wind by comparison. “I will go with you, whatever you want. You don’t have to bind me. I’ll do whatever you ask of me. Just let the Rahuli go.”
“Go?” the Sister on the left said. “Why ever should we? They’re slaves, descendants of rebels who slew one of our very Sisters through your past betrayal.”
My past betrayal?
Elyana had betrayed the Sisters, not Lhaurel. She pushed that thought aside, ignoring everything but the three women sitting before her, radiating power yet sitting there as if nothing of any real importance was going on.
“Indeed. If they had simply left that sword in the rock, they never would have triggered the alert we left behind. They have chosen their own fate, my dear.”
Lhaurel felt the three women acting as one, reaching toward her with their collective strength. Desperately, Lhaurel pulled at her power, but the three Sisters brushed aside her efforts as if she were a child fighting a sailfin. They entered her mind, her body, her blood. Pain erupted from every part of her body at once. She screamed.
“Tell the armies to pull back out of this place,” Sellia said. Lhaurel heard the words as if from a great distance as waves of pain coursed through her. She felt as if her blood was on fire, her very skin alight with flame. “Bring the Bleeders back except for the Seventh Phala. They can deliver our message for us. Let Beryl destroy them in this eruption. Let him destroy the very people he once saved. Take her to one of the wagons when she’s subdued.”
Blackness closed in around Lhaurel. “No,” she whispered, dropping to the floor. Her last fleeting thought as she succumbed to the pain and power thrumming through her was that she’d failed.
* * *
The vulcanist who had once been Beryl roared as flames licked at his body, but left his skin untouched, whole, and unburned. Beryl had kept him contained—mostly—for centuries, shutting him away in a tiny corner of his mind with the other past and future incarnations and Iterations. Now others blocked his powers. He could feel the Earth Wards working in concert to keep the stone, metal and earth intact above the roiling, beautiful magma deep within the volcano’s belly. They strove together to keep him contained.
The vulcanist laughed. He was finally out. He would not be contained again. He fought against the Earth Wards and, eventually, began to win out as they dropped out of the fight one by one, until only the first remained.
Chapter 27: Power
“The blood mages, the Seven Sisters, link us all to the paths we trod. They are the connecting force of the Iterations. They hold the ultimate power.”
—From Commentary on the Schema, Volume I
Gavin awoke as Farah stirred in his arms. He blinked blearily, his mind momentarily a second behind his body, then sat up, careful not to wake Farah. It was still dark, but there was a faint reddish glow resting on the eastern horizon and the stars were starting to fade in the night sky. It had been a long night, and it took several long yawns and stretches to fully banish the sleep from his eyes and mind.
The aevian riders had gone out and brought back as many as they could until the sun had fully fallen. Gavin had maintained a careful watch on the enemy army as Khari had taken charge of making sure everyone got bedded down for the night, Roterralar and Rahuli alike. As Gavin had observed before, there was unity in fear, and unity in a common enemy.
Evrouin’s clan had stumbled in a few hours after nightfall, the warlord himself leading them in by following the glowing lights of fires that blazed from the enemy encampment. Once during the night, shortly before the other clan had arrived, the ground had shaken and trembled. Gavin had thought they’d be too late, that Nikanor had lost his silent vigil, but the shaking had subsided after a moment. It wasn’t long after that the second clan had arrived, and Farah had found her way over to him. She fell asleep with her head in his lap, and he’d succumbed to exhaustion shortly thereafter.
Gavin got to his feet as the first few tendrils of dawn pierced the deep blue sky above. He stretched and looked at the slumbering forms around him. Dozens were already awake, though Gavin questioned whether or not many of them had even slept at all. Maugier’s clan still hadn’t arrived.
They were still alive though, that was something. Nikanor and the other Earth Wards had been able to keep the Sharani Desert from exploding, at least for now. Now they only had to worry about the armies of Orinai blocking their way. One problem down, just to be faced with another.
Gavin yawned, scratched at his growing beard to get the sand out of it, and then walked toward the sentries. He might as well go see how large the army had gotten during the night.
A few of the aevians called to one another from the outskirts of the group. Gavin looked over at them, spotting Nabil by himself to one side. Gavin shook his head. Why did Nabil insist on holding himself apart from the others of his kind?
Samsin lay a few spans away, head on a blanket, white-blond hair splayed out across the red sand.
Gavin shook his head again and then looked out to where the Orinai army had formed up. He blinked. Army? Fires still smoldered in the dim light, but no tents remained. Gavin had heard a commotion from the camp for a short while. Had that been them leaving? Only a hundred or so red-clad archers stood in formation in front of where the army had been. One man stood in front of the others, though he was clad all in white.
Gavin hurried up to the sentries. Darryn noticed him coming and met him partway.
“When did this happen?” Gavin asked.
Darryn shrugged. “Nearest we can tell, sometime in the night. Those ones have been standing there since it got light enough for us to see again.”
“Why didn’t you come get me?”
“There didn’t really seem to be a need,” Darryn said. “They’re just standing there. Besides, you and the girl . . .” He trailed off and then shrugged.
Gavin ignored that part, though he felt himself flush slightly. “Go get Khari and Cobb. Then wake Samsin on your way back.”
“I’m here already, boy,” Cobb said, walking up behind him. “These damnable beasts don’t allow my old mind much rest to try and sleep.”
“Go get the others, then,” Gavin said, nodding at Darryn. The man nodded and hurried off.
“He’s a good man, that one,” Cobb said. “If a bit stubborn.”
Gavin didn’t say anything. He kept his eyes forward, watching the red-clad archers simply standing there. Where had the rest of the army gone? Were the Earth Wards still helping keep Beryl in check or was Nikanor on his own once again? Why had that man been so willing to sacrifice himself for them?
Before too long, Darryn returned with Khari and a grumbling Samsin. The man looked even more disheveled, blond hair a matted mess sticking to one side of his face. The grumbling stopped as he got alongside Gavin and looked out over the remains of the army. He swore.
“Storms and seas unite!” he cursed. “That’s an Honor Squad.”
“A what?” Cobb demanded at the same time that Khari said, “I can’t find Lhaurel anywhere.”
Gavin held up a hand to quiet Khari and turned to look at Samsin, waiting for his answer to Cobb’s question.
“An Honor Squad,” Samsin said. “They leave behind a squad of Bleeders to deliver a message and allow a worthy enemy their final honors before death. When the sun appears on the horizon, the one in white will deliver the final message, then the archers will kill everyone here.”
“What honor is there in that?” Cobb demanded, voice quivering with anger and emotion.
Samsin turned to look at him. “The honor is being allowed to die on your own, without becoming fuel for the Sisters.”
Cobb snapped his mouth shut.
“We’ve got to stop them then,” Darryn said. “We can rush them from above and kill them before they have a chance to shoot us down.”
“They’ll just shoot you out of the sky,” Khari interrupted. “You’ll lose both the aevians and their riders.”
“Would you
rather just sit here and die?”
Khari’s eyes narrowed. “What I’m saying is that we need a better plan. What range do those archers have, Orinai?”
Samsin looked down at her, lips pursed, expression affronted. “You can’t attack an Honor Squad.”
“What range, Samsin?” Gavin asked in a level voice.
"Fifty paces for accuracy. But they don’t have to get as close as that. They just fire in a massive cloud of arrows from far away.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Gavin said, ignoring the look of incredulity that still clouded Samsin’s chiseled features. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before the sun gets over the edge of the Forbiddence. Listen closely.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later a score of aevians rose into the air, riders on their backs. The Bleeders, upon seeing this, started advancing.
“So much for stealth,” Cobb said with a chuckle.
He stood next to Gavin, sword in hand. A line of warriors stretched out to his left. More were on Gavin’s right. There weren’t many of them, only about ninety or a hundred. The rest of the Rahuli people, the women and children, retreated. Samsin stood in the line next to Gavin, though he kept muttering about impossibilities and dishonor.
“How do you miss a great massive bird flying around in the sky?” Samsin snapped. “Of course there’s not going to be any stealth.”
“It worked for the Roterralar for a thousand years,” Khari said from the other side of Samsin.
Gavin chuckled and Samsin muttered something under his breath. It felt good to laugh. Gavin had had so few opportunities for it lately. The large Storm Ward still disagreed with their plan, but had agreed to help them anyway. As he’d put it, it was better than simply giving up.
As the aevians climbed higher, the Bleeders broke into a run, narrowing the gap as quickly as they could. A small part broke off and stopped, loosing arrows up at the aevians. They fell miserably short, but it would only be a matter of moments before the bulk of the army was within firing range of Gavin and those with him. Gavin heard muttered whispers dance through the line of people and looked up at the aevians.
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