Preludes to War (Eve of Redemption Book 6)

by Joe Jackson

  “So, I understand the prophecy he was given, but what’s so special about vulkinastras that Sekassus is so afraid of them?” Kari asked as they walked.

  Seanada didn’t answer right away, though her brief glance told Kari she had heard the question. The half-syrinthian gave it some thought. Kari used the silent minutes to study her under the guise of waiting for an answer. Seanada seemed much more in her element here than back on Citaria. While she served well and without question as Kari’s bodyguard and a defender of Kari’s household, she was an outsider there, and obviously so. Here on Mehr’Durillia, the half-syrinthian seemed less out of place, despite being called an abomination by many of the people. This was her home, and she moved with the familiarity and grace of one who has lived a long time in a particular place.

  “The vulkinastra have long been held as the blessed of Be’shatha,” Seanada said at last. “While many argue that they are simply albino, or at least partially so, the more faithful hold them as sacred among the Great Mother’s people. Every time King Sekassus murders one, he is spitting in the face of the elder goddess, sleeping though she may be. It is a direct blow to the faith of the people, and now you are seeing the results of that. The mallasti people as a whole have had enough of their sacred daughters being slain. How much and how far back they can push, I cannot say – though I suppose we will both have a great deal of say in the matter come the Wraith’s plans.”

  “So the vulkinastra are always female?”

  The half-syrinthian nodded. “Always female. That is one of the primary arguments against the possibility that they are simply albino. I do not understand such things to any true degree, so I cannot speak to which side has the right of it. In short, I do not care. I was taken in by the mallasti and raised among them, and so they are my people. What harms them harms me by extension, and I share their grief and their anger. It is time to put an end to both, though there is a distinct possibility that even the death of his crown prince will not change King Sekassus.”

  “Well, then we’ll have to look into taking the next step,” Kari said, drawing the woman’s gaze to her own finally. “At some point, we’re going to have to strike at the kings themselves.”

  “I do not think us strong enough for that; certainly the Wraith has never seen fit to try.”

  “Not on our own, but all together? I think we have a chance,” Kari said. “Especially if I can pull off what I’m hoping to with some of the lesser kings.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning we try to turn as many of the kings against the Overking as possible.” Kari held up a hand to stave off any interruption, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered when it was Seanada. She was so used to being contradicted that it was pretty much instinct to do so nowadays, though. “Many of the younger kings despise him. And as to the Ancient Ones, I have to wonder if many of them would sit back and let us kill the Overking if it meant they had a chance of capturing his crown.”

  Seanada remained quiet for a minute, but then offered, “And you think this has never been tried before?”

  The demonhunter shrugged. “Well, you know what they say: if at first you don’t succeed…” Seanada’s expression remained blank. “Try, try again.”

  “Corpses rarely put in a second effort,” the half-syrinthian countered, but then she let out one of those rare but heartwarming laughs. “I suppose you are correct. We shall see how we do in combat with Amnastru, and then we can better gauge if we stand any chance against a king. I expect that the Wraith has long considered these things before us, though.”

  “How old are you?”

  The question, as intended, didn’t strike Seanada as non-sequitur. “We celebrate the anniversary of my delivery to the Te’Montasi to mark the years of my life,” she answered. “It has been thirty-one years since, and I was but a babe when I was given to my mother to raise.”

  “And Aedrien?”

  “He is the same age as I.”

  Kari chuckled, considering some of her in-laws. “And he still hasn’t left home? Or does he stay to keep your mother company?”

  “He is waiting until his betrothed reaches the proper age for taking a mate. She has only seen twenty-eight summers, so they will be wed in a couple of years. My suspicion is that they will move in with my mother to, as you say, keep her company. Certainly some new pups in the house will liven things up for my mother.”

  Seanada ducked down to the ground then, and Kari crouched and found cover. When she turned back, the half-syrinthian was examining tracks. “Trouble?”

  “Dinner,” Seanada corrected. “It will be dark soon. Let us fell a small animal for food and then find a place to bed down.”

  The hunt took no time at all. As she’d suggested, Seanada was a skilled tracker, and she revealed that her succubus side could sense life-forces from a distance. Her quarry had no way of escaping her notice without the use of arcane trickery, which she could detect with the gifts her mallasti family had taught her to use. Kari considered herself a proficient hunter, and she thought Eryn Olgaryn was a gifted assassin, but Seanada was like the two of them combined, and then on another level altogether. And that was to say nothing of her swordplay, which was as technically sound as Kari’s own, but with the stamina of a supernatural being. Seanada truly was something else.

  They made camp and slept under the stars, and got ready to continue the next day. The two women put their hoods up to approach the border of Tess’Vorg, wary of attracting the attention of a border patrol here in Sorelizar. Once they returned to King Emanitar’s realm, Kari would be free to wear his signet ring again, allowing them plenty of leeway with their coming and going. But if they got in a fight here in Sorelizar first, it would complicate things, warning their quarry of their coming and also alerting Sekassus that there was more trouble about than Amnastru might be expecting.

  Kari tucked her pendant of the Great Mother under her breastplate, and marked Seanada’s stare as she did so. “I know, I shouldn’t keep wearing this here on Mehr’Durillia. I just feel like it’s a subtle way to take a jab at the kings and let the people who see it know where I stand. I don’t want your people to get the feeling that I’m working for or with the kings aside from when our interests line up.” The half-syrinthian nodded but offered neither approval nor any criticism. “Do you worship the Great Mother?”

  Seanada looked up suddenly and gathered her things. “We should go.”

  Kari watched after her in shock. Seanada had been open with her about so many things since they’d gone to visit her family. This was the first time the demonhunter felt as though she’d crossed a line. The subject of the Great Mother might be taboo in the open, but they were out in the woods, far from any listening ears. It was possible Seanada served Sakkrass-Ashakku, but he and Be’shatha were siblings by all accounts, so Kari didn’t quite understand why Seanada would take such offense to the question.

  She sighed and followed the assassin as they attempted to reach the border of Tess’Vorg. Kari didn’t press the issue any further, but neither did she offer any apologies. She wasn’t sure she’d actually offended Seanada, so much as possibly asked her something far too personal for her to answer. The half-syrinthian’s expression was impassive, not surprising since she had been raised by the mallasti. But she offered no words for the better part of an hour.

  “I thought I explained this to you before, but perhaps you failed to understand. I am half-demon, Kari,” she said after a while.

  “And I told you, that only means what you make of it.”

  “For me, not for others. I am still finding my way and my place in a world I do not truly belong in,” Seanada continued. “The Great Mother did not create this world and its peoples to share them with demons. Neither did Lord Ashakku create the syrinthian people for them to mate and reproduce with demons. I am an abomination, Kari, such that you may never truly know what it is to be me. What I think, what I feel, and what I do may define who I am to you, to myself, and to those with an o
pen mind. But to the creators of these worlds? That, I cannot say. But I cannot imagine they would look favorably upon me. My goal is to simply earn my place and my keep, and stay out of their way.”

  “Sakkrass doesn’t see you as an abomination,” Kari countered. “The gods look at our hearts and the choices we make, Seanada, not the ones our parents made. They can’t hold you responsible for who birthed you any more than someone could hold me responsible for being born to a molester. All they can really judge us on is what we’ve done since then. And I may not know you all that well in the grand scheme of things, but I think the two of us have both done pretty well for ourselves.”

  “Are you not angry with them for what they allowed to befall you at the hands of your father? How did you come to serve them despite the cruelty that was dealt unto you?”

  Kari started walking toward the border again with a sigh. She shrugged. “I was angry for a long time, but I think what I came to realize is I can’t hold them responsible for what my father did any more than what we were just talking about. I think we all have to take our own responsibilities, and not assign them to others. But I don’t know, Seanada, I’ve never really been all that devout or theological. But I’ve felt the power of the gods enough times to know that they’re benevolent, that they do care for us, no matter what may happen to us and how mad we may get at them.”

  “I am not angry with the gods, I am simply unsure how or whether to approach them,” the half-syrinthian said. “By my very nature, I am an enemy to their existence.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Kari said, waving off the comment. “There’s plenty of people out there that aren’t half-demon who go through their entire lives not caring one wit about the gods or their desires. I don’t think the gods see those people as enemies. So to say that you’re an enemy to the gods despite all you do to fight their enemies would be unfair at best.”

  “I wish I had your faith.”

  “Don’t. Wish you had the faith of a faithful person. My faith is still always in myself first and foremost, but that’s something I’m working on. Fortunately, Zalkar and Sakkrass make it pretty easy to learn.”

  Seanada regarded her curiously, but answered only with that muted smile. Kari returned it and they fell silent as they walked. Whatever the half-syrinthian might think currently, Kari was pretty sure Seanada was wrong where the gods were concerned. Hopefully, she’d given the assassin something to think about at least. Kari’s faith was getting stronger with every passing year, but she didn’t feel like all that great an example, especially not for someone struggling with it as acutely as Seanada.

  Ultimately, Kari was satisfied with where she was at in her relationships with her deity and her adoptive father. The only thing that still nagged at her was how overtly they had to act in her life before she understood those relationships. As she’d explained to Seanada, she had wielded their power many times, and yet it still took her a while to realize just why she even could. Now they considered her their champion – Kari was the Avatar of Vengeance, after all – but she still held herself accountable for her earlier skepticism. She felt she owed it to them to guide others not to be the same way, and in Seanada, she had found such an opportunity.

  There was a droning rumble in the distance, and Seanada crouched low. Kari took cover once again, but this time she knew they weren’t about to hunt for dinner. Seanada was looking around through the trees. There was a road somewhere close by, Kari surmised; that had to be the sound of the hooves of mousivas, those equine-bovine beasts of burden that pulled carts here on Mehr’Durillia. She stayed silent, though, waiting for Seanada to give some indication of what she wanted to do.

  “There is a cart passing by on the road,” the half-syrinthian said. “By its speed and the direction, it is in a hurry. Let us move to intercept and see what passengers or cargo it carries.”

  “You mean act like the bandits that attacked us on our way through?”

  Seanada snorted. “I suppose. But we are in enemy territory, Kari. Remember that. It is possible we will find commoners or even friends, but if this is the abduction party, we must stop them from reaching the capital city.”

  “Right, let’s go see who it is.”

  They made their way stealthily through the trees, cutting across areas where there were bends in the road to keep pace without having to confront the travelers too soon. Seanada had been on point with her observation about the wagon’s speed; they were pushing their animals almost as much as the ones that had delivered Kari to King Koursturaux months before. It was all Kari and Seanada could do to try to keep up with the wagon, and if not for the meandering nature of the road in some places, they would have lost their mark quickly.

  Fortunately, after nearly half an hour of trying to keep up with the wagon, its driver brought it to a halt. A pair of armed elestram climbed down out of the covered back and moved just into the woods to relieve themselves. The driver, a syrinthian male, kept looking up and down the road warily, and called for the others to get back inside often. Kari waited with Seanada, the two crouched down by the base of a gnarled old tree that was nearly six feet wide.

  “There is a mallasti in the rear, but I cannot tell if it is our missing vulkinastra,” Seanada said after concentrating. “It is not alone, either. There are two other elestram in the back, plus the syrinthian driver.”

  “Large group for guarding a merchant or messenger,” Kari mused.

  “Indeed,” the assassin said. “Kari, I must make an attempt on these men. You may stay here if you like; I will not hold it against you should you be unwilling to attack possibly innocent men without cause.”

  “Won’t they attack us on sight if they are who we think they are?”

  “That would be most probable, yes.”

  “Then let’s just reveal ourselves and see what happens,” Kari suggested. “Keep your blades away in case they are just a random group of soldiers or a merchant and his guards.”

  Seanada agreed, and they stepped out onto the road and began walking toward the wagon. As soon as the syrinthian driver saw them, he called out to the others. Two elestram jumped down from the back of the wagon, and the other pair came out of the woods, their hands to the hilts of their weapons. Kari remained calm; it was possible they just saw her and Seanada as a general threat. That possibility was removed a moment later when the syrinthian shouted in the infernal tongue.

  “It’s them!”

  Seanada didn’t even bother glancing at Kari. In the span of a breath, her twin straight blades were in her hands, and she dashed forward. The driver spurred the beasts forward to try to run them down, but Kari ran up the embankment on the edge of the road and hopped onto the side of the wagon. The syrinthian driver tried to kick her in the face and connected solidly with her shoulder, but she used a heavy flap of her wings to give herself better leverage and get up onto the seat beside him.

  The snake-man back-fisted Kari in the chest stiffly, but between her paluric armor and the padded clothes beneath, she hardly felt it. By contrast, she grabbed at him and yanked a good handful of his hair, bringing that handsome face down into her rising armored knee. There was a crack and a spurt of blood, but Kari hardly paused. Whoever these men were, they knew who Kari and Seanada were and had been waiting for them. How deep and deadly this feint would prove to be was yet to be seen, but Kari was going to make them pay in as much of a body count as she could.

  The syrinthian’s hands went to his face and his crushed slender nose, but Kari didn’t wait for him to recover. She turned and heaved with all of her strength, launching him clear of the driver’s bench to fall between two of the animals. A braying cry like the sound of all the wind being blasted from someone’s lungs shortly preceded the wagon lurching as it barreled over the fallen body. Kari barely kept her perch on the bench, but realized that with the driver had gone the reins and any chance of getting the mousivas under control.

  That became a secondary concern as elestram mounted the cart on either sid
e of her, and Kari drew her blades. The first one lost his head before he even clambered into the seat, but Kari took a stab to the unarmored underside of her tail from the other. He had that preternatural dexterity of the jackal-folk, finishing his ascent and balancing easily on the driver’s seat beside her. They faced off in their jerky, limited space. He backed Kari up half a step with a feint, but then he made for his true purpose: he dropped down where the wagon was hitched to the animals and split the cart from its beasts of burden.

  Kari turned her sword over in her right hand and cleaved his skull clean in half with an overhand chop before he could recover his balance. The body fell between the wagon and departing animals and disappeared in the wake of the slowing cart. With the wagon skidding to a halt thanks to its harnesses digging into the dirt road, Kari hopped down and put some distance between her and the two other elestram fighters. When she wasn’t immediately attacked, Kari moved to the side to look back down the road. Off in the distance, she spotted Seanada fighting one of the other elestram, but the fourth was nowhere to be seen.

  An odd sensation fluttered through Kari’s gut, and she instinctively pushed out with her faith. When the lightning strike came, it was deflected harmlessly to the side, where it only set a nearby tree aflame. Forest fire was a definite concern, but not at that moment. Kari located her arcane attacker, who was wide-eyed and suddenly far from confident when he saw his attack had failed. Kari sprinted after him, and he turned and ran.

  When she reached the back of the cart and he gave no indication he was going to stop and fight, Kari turned and hopped up into the back of the wagon. She wouldn’t be able to keep up with an elestram, either in speed or stamina. The next thing she knew, she was picking herself up from the ground and trying to shake off the shock of being slammed with a heavy, bladed weapon. Thanking the gods for her paluric armor, she got her wits about her just in time to see a sylinth slither out of the wagon’s rear and bear down upon her.