It hit trees and discovered they had all turned to ash.
It ran straight. Faster but not fast enough. Ash clogged its nostrils. The red robes’ magic was spreading faster than it could run. Roth’s claws began to retract, turning inward through the sticky blood that matted its fur, picking up more cinder as it went. It could feel the blood in its veins slowing, becoming heavy. The energy was no longer there, but more than its life was at stake. If it fell now all would be lost. Tirielle would fall. If it was meant to die, then at least its death would mean something. But not here. It would not die here.
It wanted to sleep, to lay down with the ash and let itself be blown away too. Still it pushed on, its feet slowing to a blur as the chants gained power with proximity. It ran out from the ashened trees into the clear to see the wizards, backs turned toward it.
The wizards stood in ranks of ten with the steel meshing held together in a clever interlocking fashion. Tall enough to stop a man jumping over, perhaps, but Roth could still manage it. It leapt.
Fur tore away from its back as Roth tumbled over. It tried to push itself up but had not the strength.
Roth looked up and there was the wizard, standing over it. He looked down at the rahken through petty eyes.
“You always seem to fall short, friend.
“You are interesting, though,” he remarked to himself as he scratched his long nose. He knelt beside the broken warrior and whispered, conspiratorially, into its ear. It had to be more of a shout to get over the chanting but Roth heard him through its slowing brain.
“I’ve never had the chance to see the effect of our – side effects – on a rahken. I never realised your skin was so light underneath either. And all these different colours on your kin. Very interesting indeed.” He stabbed at Roth’s bald back with a sharp fingernail, drawing blood on the blackening hide. “It seems your kind warrant more study.”
Roth managed to make its mouth speak. “More study?”
“Yes, see what you’re made of, eh?”
“Anything you learn from me…” Roth pushed itself up with a tremendous effort. Blood seeped as its skin dried under the onslaught. “Will be the shortest lesson of your life.”
Roth bucked like a bull, the back of its head colliding with the crouched wizard’s chin, propelling him off his feet and into the air. It reached out with both hands and grabbed the wizard by the jaw before he could fall backward.
Ignoring the blood dribbling from its nostrils, Roth looked into the Protocrat’s eyes and saw nothing there worth dying for.
With a great wrench it tore the head from the wizard’s neck.
Blood spurted over the chanters and they faltered. The unlucky ones turned to see a rahken before them, standing despite the onslaught of their words. Roth tossed the head at them.
“I beg your pardon. I was about to educate your friend here but it seems the lesson was cut short. I think he wanted to learn. I’m happy to teach. I am a rahken…a warrior…”
A quick witted wizard with a youthful face began chanting again, aiming at the dogged looking Rahken. A brown raindrop splashed on his forehead, making him pause and stare into the sky. Roth’s claws came to bear as the blood began coursing again. Rage pushed it on even further. Roth drew itself to full height, sizzling as the muddy rain cooled the burned flesh.
“Let me elaborate…” it said, and faster than lightening, the youth’s throat yawned wide.
*
Chapter Eighty-Two
Jek’s desk shattered. The view disappeared. The girl was free and lost again. “What do I have to do!?”
There was no way he could risk the Guryon. They had both broken free. There was too much attention.
One or the other, Jek thought, that’s all we have to kill. One or the other. And we can’t even manage that.
The translucent pond where Jek had watched the battle was now a splintered hole. There was nothing left to do now but wait. A knock echoed through the spacial plane and arrived at his door. He ignored it. The Speculate waited his pleasure, not the other way around.
Tirielle, Shorn, the First and the Second. It didn’t matter.
Teryithyr was ready; cold, dead, awaiting the Protectorate’s embrace. It had long been prepared. The Prognosticators, the readers – the view of the future was clear from every vantage point. It was the wizard that truly mattered.
It wasn’t a job for Tun. He was too meaty a blade to open the frozen north of the backward continent. Klan should go. The precocious rising star. Klan was undoubtedly the best suited for the job. He was cold enough. And far too dangerous to leave to his own devices, with all that Arram had to offer. His power was already unnatural and, Jek worried, far outweighed his own. He allowed himself a smile. He would kill two birds with one stone.
He opened the door and allowed himself a moment to breath in the blackness, then stepped through the threshold into Arram.
He did not look fazed. The rest of the play no longer mattered. Foolish Sard. He couldn’t believe their stupidity.
It was inelegant, but, well, if they could not break the key, they would have to destroy the lock instead.
*
Chapter Eighty-Three
The Tenthers had fought to the last man. With the wizards dead by Roth’s gargantuan hands, the Protectorate ranks had begun to fall. The toll the rahkens took had still been heavy, though. The bodies of their dead lay across the plateau.
Anyone foolish enough to believe the Tenthers toothless without their wizards chanting their insane chants behind them deserved subservience, if they were lucky enough to be given the choice. The Tenthers took no prisoners. They expected the same. The rahkens and the Sard had obliged – grudgingly.
The Sard’s triangle had collapsed around the last of the Tenthers, falling into them viciously. j’ark had asked just once. But there was no give in the Tenthers. They were as rigid as their swords.
The last of the Tenthers had fallen with screaming hatred still etched on his face.
*
Chapter Eighty-Four
j’ark had explained the triangle formation to Tirielle as they waited in the fading light and the aftermath of the battle, the warmth draining from the air nothing to do with the weather.
‘It’s solid,’ the ambassador had said, ‘but it’s not the entire answer. Sometimes you want solidity – the triangle formation gives that to you, but it is missing something without the last of our order, the Watcher. The triangle, solid, comprises of three points. Only when the last joins does it become fluid. Only with Drun is it whole.’
Tirielle wished to meet this Drun. It was intriguing to her that Quintal was their leader but so many hopes were pinned on the one of their number who would carry no sword. But then, perhaps it was not that odd. These men seemed willing to follow her to death and back again. Tirielle thought it sad – all these lost men (and she did think of them as men – even though they were not her kin, she thought they must still have loves at home who would never know their fate). j’ark, waiting beside her for the others to emerge, said he thought nothing of it. Tirielle tried but could see no hint if this was the truth behind his eyes. They glowed so brightly when he spoke that sometimes she felt she could see nothing of the man behind them.
She would not budge, no matter how hard he tried. The Sard, it seemed to her, thought the world rested on her going with them to be a sacrifice. She had decided long ago, when she had lost her father and she had been but a child, that sacrifices were for martyrs. It was nothing but a lazy kind of aid. More could be achieved in one life than with a thousand willing deaths.
“It will be a long journey. I am not sure it is safe. Beheth is their stronghold, Tirielle. You should not go yourself.” j’ark was certainly persistent.
Tirielle looked at the man beside her. No matter how many times she had tried to persuade him she could not be swayed from her course, he stoically refused to give in. Chivalry was not for her. Not that she didn’t appreciate it.
“I have vo
wed, j’ark. A man such as you must understand this…”
“But the perils we have already faced – you do too much. This is not your fate, Tirielle. You must know this by now.”
“Yes, I know of the fate you have drawn out for me, but I also know what I feel. Fate is fickle. My feelings are not. Would you have me abandon the girl? To hunt this wizard, even though you know not where he rests, if he lives, what he is – you know so little. Give myself as sacrifice and let the girl die uncared for? No, j’ark. The future is shifting. This girl is solid. I will stand by her.”
“Perhaps your sacrifice will be less than a death, Tirielle. There is more to sacrifice than life.”
“That is what I am afraid of. But I do not deny my destiny – who could? But it can wait. The girl has greater need of me than you. I will come with you, but only after I have seen to the girl. Besides, you need to go to Beheth, too. Perhaps there you will find the answers you seek.”
J’ark nodded as though this was the right answer, seemingly pleased, even though he obviously wanted her to leave the girl behind (he is the ambassador, she remembered – perhaps I judge him too harshly, and it is what the Sard want?).
“We will stand by you until the death, regardless. We will always go with you…I, we, just wish you would reconsider. The road will be hard enough without taking other responsibilities to heart,” he said. Whatever his wishes.
“And what of the wizard?”
j’ark smiled sweetly at her. “As you say. We know not if he is dead or alive. If the fates truly expect us to find him, I’m sure we will anyway.”
“And I am not so sure I want to find him if it means my death, but I believe you, j’ark. I believe you now.”
They fell into silence.
And if I am to gain my freedom, Tirielle thought, I must fulfil my duties. There will be no freedom for me or my people while we wait and hope for life to sort itself out. I must make this happen. She squared her shoulders and made herself stare unblinking into the depths of the carnage before them, where the white-boned icicles were thawing. So much blood. It would seep into the stone itself. The battle had been terrible, her first (and last? She wondered), and the price had been high for the Protectorate, slaughtered to a man, but higher still for the rahkens. She felt for them, too. Soon, they would be drinking water in their underground cave flavoured with the burnt blood of their own dead.
If this is the alternative, she thought, there is no recourse but to fight. I will run no longer. If I am fated to die a sacrifice it will not be on my heels.
Fenore laid one massive hand against her tense shoulder and she jumped. Tirielle turned to see them all aligned behind her, her friends, the seer and Roth, and her protectors. Her paladins.
“It has been a terrible day, Tirielle, but you can stay no longer. They will return. While they cannot enter our caves, I fear what they would do to get you out.” She favoured Tirielle with a kind look. Looking into Tirielle’s brown and black eyes, Fenore spoke for the rahken nations.
“We know something of the future, too, Tirielle A’m Dralorn, but only that reflected from the past. You will leave here, and when the time comes, you will ask for our aid. I know this. We know this. When the time comes, child, the Rahken Nation will stand with you.”
She had never seen fury in a rahken’s face but with the detritus of war reflected in Fenore’s eyes Tirielle could imagine what it would look like.
“I am also called the Sacrifice, Fenore. I feel time pressing on me – I fear your offer will be past my time.”
“Not all sacrifices are for death, Tirielle.” Roth told her, dipping its head to catch her eye.
“The future is shifting. I know my destiny now. If I live,” she looked into Fenore’s eyes, “I will return.”
“Life finds a way, Tirielle. We will meet again.”
Fenore smiled a last sad smile to her child. All words to her child she had already spoken. She put her hand gently against Roth’s charred face instead.
“Then,” Typraille said as he mounted his horse, “Beheth!”
Finally, Fenore thought, as she watched them leave. A human worthy of our geas.
*
Chapter Eighty-Five
Klan wondered where the mercenary was as he looked out over the endless white expanse of Teryithyr, only broken here and there with slightly less-white crevasses where the ice had cracked and formed and cracked again over thousands of years. Some gigantic cliffs towered higher that even the tallest of the Hierarch minarets in Lianthre. The suns, low on the horizon, were none the less throwing their light viciously from the icy mirror of the ground. The leaping light blinded his soldiers. Klan merely adjusted his eyes.
None had ever seen the Teryithyr. Klan would gladly use his own ranks to their deaths but not if he had no idea what he was up against. While his own division was now over three hundred strong (the ranks taken from only the most powerful of protocrats) he would not use them for this. This was donkey work.
He had brought the tenthers.
The Pernant was waiting. Klan had let him wait a long time now. The Pernant was trying not to shiver. Klan did so enjoy these little tortures.
“Establish the perimeter. We will see about setting camp. I want my tent here, overlooking this dip, with that cliff behind me.”
“Your will, Anamnesor Mard.” The Pernant bowed crisply, and, pulling his white cloak tightly around him against the piercing cold, returned to bark orders at his ten.
Klan toned out as the noise of soldiers working reached his ears. Soon they would have the base established. He loathed these lowly protocrats, those who had no more ambition than to wield a sword, but they were disciplined. Now, the scouts he liked. They were more like him. He had sent them out to find him something to eat. Something large, preferably. His force needed food and he was getting hungry, as well.
When they returned he was not disappointed. The beast they had captured was indeed magnificent. It must weight the same as four soldiers – in armour. Thick off-white fur covered most of it, but he noticed how the inner parts of its body were covered instead in thick leathery skin, lightly muddy coloured. They were supposed to be intelligent, but he could not imagine what manner of intelligent beast would choose to live in this wilderness with nothing at all to look at. He curled snow between his toes as the scouts bearing the beast dragged it closer. It took six to move the trussed monster even on the hard packed snow. Its powerful chest heaved against the ropes that bound it.
The scouts stopped in the centre of the camp, where they left the Teryithyrian (named for the land that spawned the creatures).
“Master, how would you like it done?” said the camp’s cook.
“Hmm?” Klan stared absentmindedly into the thing’s eyes. Imploring him. Yes, there was definitely intellect there.
The cook took a chance. “May I suggest basted in its own juices, Master?”
“Yes, I’d like mine tender.” Klan turned back to his tent.
As he walked he wondered if intellect added flavour. Something else worried at him, a feeling, like someone talking over his shoulder in sign. He put it down to excitement as he shut the flap behind him and waited for his supper.
The cook brought Klan’s meat to him later on that evening. Klan dismissed him without looking up.
Outside, a wall of white rose suddenly against the darker night, blotting it and the landscape behind from view.
The Teryithyr did not take kindly to the slaughter of one of their brethren.
The clamour of battle dragged Klan from his meat. He emerged from his tent with the remains of his meal (if intelligence added anything to the flavour he would never know – the Teryithyr he ate must have been stupid) still on his plate. The Pernant he had spoken to early ran up the small incline to where Klan waited in front of his tent. The dark didn’t affect Klan’s eyes – he could see the Teryithyr perfectly well. They were destroying the elite. They slew the Tenthers so fast Klan could barely believe his eyes.
Still, he could spare a few grunts in the name of education.
He watched the men being torn to pieces. The Teryithyr would have been powerful allies – it was a shame that they could not speak. The Protectorate would not accept any allies that were so obviously of lower intelligence than even the humans. Perhaps they could be harnessed. But for now, damage limitation.
“Anamnesor! We are being driven back by these monsters! They came from nowhere – I fear we have not enough men to hold.”
“Yes, well, Pernant, what did you expect? We have just eaten one of their number for supper.”
“Sir?”
Perhaps it was time to do something about the rout he was witnessing, thought Klan, ignoring the Pernant for a moment.
“Nevermind, Pernant. Stand back, would you?”
Klan indicated a spot behind him. “You might want to cover your eyes.” As soon as he said it, Klan, all in black against the white canopy of his tent behind him, spread his arms and fingers wide like a dead tree. The Pernant did not have time to cover his eyes.
“This may hurt,” Klan said.
He opened his mouth and out poured a bright red light, a blinding flash, like an explosion. The Pernant next to him fell to his knees. They cracked against the ice, then began to sink as the snow melted in a huge arc stretching out before Klan. The cries of battle ceased almost as soon as the roar had begun.
The night was still again.
Klan looked out at the scene before him. So, the Teryithyr were not such a challenging foe after all.
Klan walked to the edge of his lake of the dead and admired it. It was almost artistically peaceful. The tenthers were just collateral. He could bear their loss. He was glad he had not brought soldiers from his own division. Klan searched his soul for some compassion for the dead and found it empty.
Rythe Awakes (The Rythe Trilogy) Page 35