It’s useless to resist, he thought.
“Shar.” Kirana said it like a curse, as if seeing them had awakened some deeply buried need for revenge, as if it was in her very blood. That’s when he realized that the red glow wasn’t coming from the creatures standing in his doorway.
It was coming from his sister.
Fire draped and wrapped around her body in cascading waves, caressing her skin, licking and scorching the ceiling, casting shadows around the room in a chaotic dance. She extended her hands and gave Takarus just enough time to roll out of the way before she filled the stairwell with a tumbling wall of fire that consumed the doorway.
He thought he heard a twisted chuckle come from beyond the doorway as the flames wisped away into a thick cloud of smoke; he watched her fall into a crouch, ready to attack again.
“You okay?” Takarus asked, placing his hand on her shoulder. He could almost feel her hyperventilating. Maybe the fear was already getting to her?
“I’m fine,” she said, brushing his hand away. “Be ready for anything.”
Takarus’s aura lit the room blue; he could see that the stairwell had been charred to a crisp...but the creatures that had just been standing there were nowhere to be seen. If Kirana’s attack had been successful, shouldn’t there have been bodies?
“I’m gonna check things out,” Takarus said.
“Wait for me.” Kirana stood back up. “We shouldn’t get separated.”
“Okay, but no more stunts like that, you know what Father says about overexerting yourself.”
She glared at him. “I’m well aware.”
Takarus nodded, swallowed the fear that crept its way up his throat, and carefully edged his way down the spiral staircase. The smell of burnt hair and flesh crept into his nostrils as they entered the guard station at the bottom of the stairwell. He was almost afraid to look.
His foot hit something. He looked down to see the severed arms, hands, fingers, torsos...and the heads of Valier staring up at him, their eyes permanently fixed in terror. Their blood painted the walls. Sweat beaded his brow. His heart thundered in his chest as he frantically glanced around the chamber.
Were they still here?
Were they hiding, waiting for just the right moment to reveal themselves and end their lives? If these trained Valier had been so easily killed, what chance would they stand against them?
He was in a daze, reflecting on a day Father had taken them to the library instead of the sparring court. He’d said that they could learn just as much from history as they could from preparing for war. When the Shar come again, and they will come for us, you two must be ready. I will not lose you.
Takarus edged closer to the front door of the tower, quieting his aura. The door had been blasted open. He crouched low and listened.
“What happened to the sounds we heard earlier?” Kirana asked.
Takarus shook his head. He didn’t want to say what he was thinking. At this hour of the day most Sulekiel were asleep. It’d be an easy thing for the Shar to slip in and kill them with little, if any, resistance.
What if we’re the only ones left? he thought.
Soon he found himself in the middle of the bridge in front of the tower, crouched low, listening to the sound of the river crashing and rolling underneath.
Don’t use your eyes to seek out your enemy, son, his father had said. The Shar are deceptive, they will use the environment to their advantage, and they will make you see what you want to see.
He nodded, almost as if he could feel his father’s presence next to him, instructing him. He closed his eyes, quieted his mind, and felt out his surroundings like a blind man feeling his way through a room.
He sensed something nearby. Then, he sensed more, all around him, inches from his face.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing. “That’s weird, Kirana, do you sense—”
Lightning flashed through the dark, across the front of the bridge. The sound of cracking stone and splintering wood exploded through the air, mixing with the roar of the river below, followed by a shock wave. Then another bolt of lightning hit the bridge, this one from behind him, and he felt pebbles and ash beat at his skin.
Takarus was in free fall when he saw their silhouettes dashing toward him, terrible serrated grins and glowing, soulless eyes. Maybe it was instinct that had saved him, or maybe it was his father’s brutal lessons that had ingrained in him the habit to toss up his barrier as a reflex as his body was tossed through the air.
Another bolt of lightning slammed into his barrier with such force that he barely noticed his body getting tossed back through his father’s tower wall like a wrecking ball.
There was a ringing in his ears; he could taste blood in his mouth.
Too bad he had only protected the front of his body, because his back sure hurt like hell.
Takarus opened his eyes. He was resting on a pile of rubble, staring at blood splatters on his father’s ceiling. He struggled to sit up, bits of the ancient stonework crumbling in on itself from the part of the wall he’d inadvertently destroyed. Another hit like that and he’d be dead for sure.
Father would be ashamed.
There was an ache spreading through his body like he’d never felt before in his life. No one, not even his father, had hit him that hard. Did his ancestors really fight these monsters? Now he understood why their people had been driven underground. And why they would all die tonight.
The darkness had come to envelop him again. Part of him wanted to hide there, but he knew it was useless, not if they’d killed everyone else. He struggled to his feet, toughing out the pains in his limbs. He could hear their laughter. It felt like it was all around him.
“Where did the girl go?”
They spoke his language?
Your sister is next.
“Who cares? We’ll find them all sooner or later. Let’s just kill this sorry runt and move on to the next building.”
“Not too quickly. Let’s have some fun with this one.”
“We have orders.”
“What good is an occupation if you can’t enjoy yourself while doing it?”
The other creature sighed. “We are of one will.”
Your father would be ashamed of you. He’d disown you if he knew how weak you were.
Takarus couldn’t find the courage to speak. He wasn’t much of a talker, not like Sage was. Sage would have rushed them blindly, taunting them the whole time—and he’d probably have died all the same.
Takarus’s aura coated his body like an electrified nimbus.
“What are you doing, boy?” one of the Shar asked.
“There’s no point in fighting us. We slaughtered most of you with ease, what hope do you have of stopping us?”
“Give up. Just let it happen.”
“Wait a second,” Takarus said, squinting in the dark.
“We wait for no one, child,” one of them said.
Their mouths didn’t move when they spoke. The words practically echoed in his mind! They were trying to get him to doubt his own abilities. Weakening his strength of will.
Now you’re getting it, runt, the voice said. There are so many other uses to Sulen.
He glanced around the ruins that had once been his father’s guard station. Father made sure that only Valier whom he was sure held no animosity to Geidra watched over them. Rooms like this one had been meant to maximize their chances of survival should another uprising happen against the High Elder. But it had been more than just a place for rotating Valier to keep watch over them. They’d played games here with so many Valier, with their father, shared their hopes and dreams, made up stories over so many dinners, and groaned as their father ordered them to go to bed throughout the processions. It was where they had been able to be a real family.
It was their home.
And these bastards had destroyed it without hesitation.
What do we care of your family, boy? one of them said.
“I’ll make you care,
then!” A surge of anger rose through Takarus. He seized that anger in the form of a ball of raging fire, held it above his head, spinning and brightening the bloody and shattered husk that he’d once called home, then launched it at the creatures.
The fireball burst into sparks against one of the supports to the building, and when the smoke cleared, the creatures were gone.
They had been in front of him, hadn’t they?
Even as he thought that, he felt a cold scaly arm wrap around his throat.
It’s no fun hunting Sulekiel anymore, the Shar said. At least try to make this interesting.
He could feel its claws sinking into his flesh, digging deep and scratching his ribs. He tried to move, but his limbs were paralyzed with an intense searing sensation that quickly spread through him. Were they really just playing with him? Where was Kirana?
Fool, think about it. There’s only been you and me this whole time. I’ve already killed your sister!
His eyes glanced down at the creature’s three claws, shredding his tunic, generating a hazy blue glow around each wound. That’s when he figured it out. His insides were being slowly cooked by a steady stream of electricity. The shock was making it so he couldn’t move his limbs.
Figured it out, eh? Good for you. How does it feel to know that when you die, your essence will be eaten by Malo’thul?
The creature must have increased the voltage, because Takarus felt his knees give out; but, instead of letting him collapse on the rubble-strewn floor below, the creature caught him with its other arm and propped him up.
No, no, can’t have that. Not when we’re just beginning to have some fun with you. Such is the price of betrayal. I’m sure my predecessor would agree.
He could feel himself slipping; the darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision. He blacked out.
Then he was falling, blood rushing to his head. He didn’t feel himself hit the rubble. Too numb. Moments later, his vision cleared, and he couldn’t believe his eyes.
A blur of coal skin and silvered eyebrows was rushing at the creature with a spiral helix of lightning trailing his back. The creature was nimble, jumping from table to wall, and then in front of his semi-conscious body with its arms spread wide—generating a spherical azure barrier around the both of them.
He felt the faint caress of cold metal at the back of his neck. Move again and we kill your—
Father wasted no time. The barrier the creature had created exploded into sparks with a terrible BANG!
If Takarus had been merely half-awake when he first opened his eyes to see Father doing battle with a Shar, he was wide awake now. The creature’s grip released from his neck and he rolled away in time to see his father close the distance between himself and the Shar: reaching back, his palm clenched like a claw, pure Sulen igniting around his hand as he thrust it through the creature’s chest.
Thick, smoldering material spilled from its chest; its eyes opened in shock as Father ripped out its slimy heart and crushed it in his hands.
The Shar screamed unintelligible things as it fell to its knees, gripping at its melting innards before collapsing forward on its face, drowning in its own blackened blood.
“Thank you,” Takarus said, stuttering to find the words.
“You should have been able to handle those drones,” his father said, his expression full of scorn. “I’m disappointed.”
Takarus was too shaken to sulk, but still his father’s words cut deep. “Where’s Kirana?”
“Safe,” Kirana said, coming through the hole in the wall. She was breathing heavily and covered in scrapes and bruises. “No thanks to you.”
“Your sister was able to kill her attacker, albeit with some difficulty.” Father smiled at her briefly.
She had always been his favorite.
“What happened, Father?” Takarus shook his head, still trying to shake off the stiffness in his limbs. “How could this have happened?”
His father’s look was cold, and in that moment he knew. Sage.
He lied to me about going to the surface, Takarus thought. I asked him, I begged him to tell me the truth, and he lied...
“I’m sorry, father,” Takarus said. “I never knew. I—”
“This is not the time to blame one another,” Father said. Although it was clear by his tone that blame had already been cast on him. “Right now, the High Elder has been taken by the Shar. We need to get her back.”
“Us?” Kirana no longer sounded so confident.
“What about the other Valier?”
“Our forces are scattered. I lost two of my men fighting my way to you.” Father’s face darkened. “Many of our people did not survive this first wave. They were too inexperienced, too soft. We need to ensure that the High Elder is not among the dead.”
“Do you know where they took her?” Kirana stepped forward, the fear in her words overshadowed by the anger in her aura . And it was no wonder; she made no secret about how she idolized Geidra.
“I sensed her in the direction of the Tower of Judgments.”
“Why would they take her there?” Takarus said.
“I don’t know,” Father said. “We need to move now.”
“Aren’t there a lot of Shar still lurking around out there?” Kirana asked.
“A small group did this,” he said. “They took us completely by surprise. There was no way they could have sensed us during our march to exile the traitors, so they must have already known where the city was.”
“What?” Takarus shook his head. “How can that be?”
His father’s face flashed with rage; he rushed him, grabbing him by the shirt collar, hefting him off his feet. “You were warned about what sort of enemy the Shar is, boy! There is a very good reason why we have been down here for so damn long!”
His father’s grip released; his feet touched earth. “I didn’t...how many of us are left?”
His father turned his back, heading for the hole in the wall. “We will worry about that later. Enough chatter, we move now.”
It wasn’t like Father to be so secretive...was he protecting them from the truth to save them heartache, or was there some other reason?
There was an awkward silence between them as they moved. After a time, his father finally spoke again. “We’ll need to keep to the shadows and keep our Sulen completely suppressed so they don’t sense us coming.”
As he spoke, Father quieted his aura. Takarus’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. There were still torches alight in the distance, but they were dim. He could see dozens of silhouettes, bodies and body parts littering the dark.
Father moved to the exit, where the bridge had been destroyed, and leapt to the other side without making so much as a sound. Kirana followed him closely.
Takarus stopped at the bridge. Something caught his eye. Two open eyes, glistening in the torchlight, regarded him from the floor. They were familiar. Those eyes belonged to Yris. She was a close friend of Father’s. Takarus remembered how she had stopped by from time to time to have dinner with them, to play games, to drink.
Part of him had hoped that Father would take her as his new mate...but Father would never have dishonored the memory of Mother.
Tears welled in Takarus’s eyes as he leapt over the rushing river and joined Father and Kirana. He couldn’t help but feel responsible for this. If he hadn’t believed Sage’s lies...
2
They moved carefully through the darkest shadows in the cavern. The Tower of Judgments was at the end of a long series of tunnels. Their feet padded against a wooden walkway that guided their path. At the end of the path, the torches on the tower gave the cavern that contained it a strange and otherworldly golden glow.
Father led them up to the entrance. The doors were easily three times their own height, and they were closed. Father tried the door, but it was locked from the inside.
“What do we do?” Takarus asked.
“Be silent while I think,” Father said.
He couldn’t j
ust bust the doors in if they were trying to maintain the element of surprise...and Takarus couldn’t think of any other entrances into the tower. Not that he knew much at all about its layout. There had to be some kind of secret entrance somewhere.
Then, his father stretched his hand back and punched the vaulted doors so hard the locks snapped and the wood splintered and collapsed in on itself. The doors swung open, revealing a darkened, twisting spiral staircase.
So much for subtlety.
Father stood back and gestured for them to go inside. His sister walked forward without thinking, but Takarus hesitated.
“Aren’t you coming?” Takarus asked.
Father held his finger to his lips and leapt to the floor above them, grasping onto a statue. Takuarus understood then. He watched his father scale the outside of the tower wall, leaping from statue to statue, until he was no more than a creeping shadow in the dark.
“Why do you always question him?” Kirana asked. “This is why he favors me, you know?”
“Let’s get this over with,” Takarus said.
They approached the stairwell. Sage and Reysha had just recently passed through here, and, like them, he and Kirana would likely face their deaths at court. He couldn’t help but think about the storm of indignation he’d felt from Sage during the ascension ceremony. The pain in his former friend’s eyes.
He couldn’t help but think of all the mischief they’d gotten into as children. He tried to tell himself that Sage had just been trying to corrupt him, like Father wanted him to believe.
But Sage was likely dead now. And Takarus couldn’t help but feel something wrench at his heart at the thought. And to think, the last thing he’d said to him was that he was a poison in his life.
Maybe this is what we deserve, Takarus thought.
Shouts and screams echoed and bounced off the towering stone walls when they came to the top of the winding stair. Evil, violet light filled the stairwell as they crept up the court arches.
“Kill me if you’ve got nothing else to say, because I will tell you nothing!” Geidra shouted.
The Man Without Hands Page 30