by Ted Dekker
In his dreams.
They first saw the sea of fires four hours later, pinpricks of smoking light from oil torches several miles beyond the dune they had crested.
Wood was scarce, but the black liquid that seeped from the sand in distant reserves met their needs as well or better than wood. Thomas had never seen the oil reserves, but the Forest Guard frequently confiscated barrels of the stuff from fallen armies and hauled it off as spoil.
They drew up side by side, ten wide, looking west. For several seconds they sat atop the dune in total silence. Even what was left of the army was daunting.
“You are certain about this, Thomas?” William said.
“No. But I am certain that our options are growing thin.” He sounded far more confident than he felt.
“I should come with you,” Mikil said.
“We stick to the plan,” he said. “William and I go alone.”
They knew the reasons. First there was the matter of their skin. All but Thomas and William had bathed in the lake before leaving. Then there was Mikil: Horde women didn’t normally travel with the armies. Even if her skin turned, entering could be dangerous for her, despite her claim that she could look as much a man in burlap as any of them.
“How is your skin, William?”
His lieutenant pulled up his sleeve. “Itching.”
Thomas dismounted, pulled out a bag of ash, and tossed it to him. “Face, arms, and legs. Don’t be stingy.”
“You’re sure this will fool them?” Mikil asked.
“I mixed the ash with some of the sulfur we used for the black powder. It’s the scent as much as the—”
“Ugh! This is horrid!” William gasped, nose turned from the bag. He coughed. “They’ll smell us coming a mile away!”
“Not if we smell like them. It’s their dogs that worry me the most. And our eyes.”
Mikil stared into his eyes. “They’re paling already. In this light you should be fine. And honestly, in this light with enough of that rotten ash on my skin, I could pass as easily as you.”
Thomas ignored her persistence.
Ten minutes later he and William had powdered their skin gray, checked their gear to be sure none of it would be associated with the Guard, and remounted. The others remained on foot.
“Okay.” Thomas took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Here we go. Look for the fire, Mikil, just as we planned. If you see one of their tents suddenly go up in flames, send the rest in for us on horse, fast and low. Bring our horses. Whatever you do, don’t forget to keep your hoods on. And you might want to throw some ash on your face for good measure.”
“Send the rest? Lead them, you mean.”
“Send them. I need someone to lead the Guard in the event it all goes badly.”
She glared at him and set her jaw. “I think you should reconsider going in.”
“We go with the plan. As always.”
“And as always you refuse any voice of caution. I’m looking at the camp and I’m watching my general about to throw himself into this pack of wolves and I’m starting to wonder why.”
“For the same reason we’ve had all day,” he said. “Jamous nearly lost his life yesterday, and we the day before. The Horde is gaining strength, and unless we do something to cripple them, not only Jamous, but all of us along with our children, will die.”
Mikil crossed her arms and squatted.
“Let’s go,” William said. “I want to get out of there before daylight.”
“The people need you,” Thomas told Mikil softly.
“No, the people need you, Thomas.”
She frowned. It was hopeless.
“Elyon’s strength,” Thomas said.
“Elyon’s strength,” the others muttered. Mikil said nothing. She would snap out of her brooding mood soon enough, but at the moment he let her make her statement.
Thomas clucked his tongue and eased his horse down the slope.
PERHAPS WE should stop here for the night,” Suzan said, staring out at the black desert.
“How can we? I didn’t come all this way to wait for him. I could have waited for him at the village.”
Rachelle kicked her horse into a trot. They’d ridden hard most of the day and picked their way through the body-strewn canyon in the last hour. She’d seen her share of battlefields, but this one had been terrifying.
Suzan drew abreast. “We can’t be sure they even went out—there are too many tracks for me to know.”
“I know my husband; he went out. If he left the village without so much as a whisper to me, trust me, he’s on a mission. He won’t stop for darkness. And you’re the best tracker in the Guard, aren’t you? Then track.”
“Even if we do catch them, what advantage is tonight over tomorrow?”
“I told you, I have information that may save his life. He’s going for the Books of Histories because of his dreams, Suzan. He may say it’s to give the Guard an advantage, and I’m not saying it wouldn’t, but there’s more to the story. I have to reach him before he dreams so that he can find me.”
“Find you?”
She shouldn’t have said so much.
“Before he dreams.”
“We’re risking our necks over another dream?”
“His dream of black powder saved us all. You were there.”
Any further explanation would be futile. Thomas himself hadn’t been able to satisfy her, neither fifteen years ago nor last night. She pressed her thumb against the forefinger that had been cut in her own dream. There were two worlds, and each affected the other. With each passing mile, her conviction had grown. With each recollection of Thomas’s dreams fifteen years earlier, her understanding had broadened, though she had no clue how it was happening, much less why.
But she could not ignore the pain in her finger.
Forgive me, Thomas. Forgive me, my love.
“It still makes no sense to me,” Suzan said, searching the ground for tracks.
“And it may never make sense to you. But I’m willing to stake my life on it. I don’t want my husband to die, and unless we reach him, he might.”
“Thomas doesn’t die easily.”
“The virus doesn’t care who dies easily.”
THEY APPROACHED the Horde camp from the northeast, over a small rise that fell into a broad flat valley, with a light breeze in their faces.
Thomas lay on his belly next to William and studied the camp. Tens of thousands of torches on stakes lit the desert night with a surreal orange glow. A giant circular blob of lights spread across the sand. Their tents were square, roughly ten by ten, woven from a coarse thread made from the stalks of desert wheat. The stalks were pounded flat and rolled into long strands that the Horde used for everything from their clothing to bindings.
“There!” William pointed to their right. A huge tent rose above the others south of center. “That’s it.”
“And it’s a good half-mile past the perimeter,” Thomas said quietly.
They’d left their horses staked behind them where they would be hidden by the dune. The Guard had never attempted to infiltrate a camp before. Thomas was banking on a minimal perimeter guard as a result. He and William would go on foot and hopefully slip in unnoticed.
“That’s a lot of Horde,” William said.
“A whole lot.”
William eased his sword a few inches out of its scabbard. “You ever swung a Scab sword before?”
“Once or twice. The blades aren’t as sharp as ours.”
“The thought of killing a few with their own weapons is appealing.”
“Put it away. The last thing I want is a fight. Tonight we are thieves.”
His lieutenant shoved the sword home.
“Remember, don’t speak unless directly questioned. No eye contact. Keep your hood as far over your face as possible. Walk with pain.”
“I do have pain,” William said. “The cursed disease is killing me already. You said it won’t affect the mind for a while. How lo
ng?”
“If we get out before morning, we’ll be fine.”
“We should have brought the water. Their dogs would never know the difference.”
“We don’t know that. And if we are taken, the water would incriminate us. They can smell it, trust me.”
“You have any idea what the Books look like?” William asked.
“Books. Books are books. Maybe scrolls similar to the ones we use, or the flat kind from long ago. If we find them, we’ll know. Ready?”
“Always.”
They stood.
Deep breath.
“Let’s go.”
Thomas and William walked as naturally as they could, careful to use the slightly slower step that the rot forced upon the Desert Dwellers. A ring of torches planted every fifty paces ran the camp’s circumference.
There was no perimeter guard.
“Stay in the shadows until we enter the main path that leads to the center,” Thomas whispered.
“Right up the middle?”
“We’re Scabs. We would walk right up the middle.”
The stench was nearly unbearable, if anything, stronger than the powder they’d applied. No dogs were barking yet. So far, so good.
Thomas wiped the sweat from his palms, momentarily touched the hilt of the sword hanging from his waist, and walked past the first torch, through a gap between two tents, and into the main camp.
The retarded pace was nearly unbearable. Everything in Thomas urged him to run. He had twice the speed of any of these diseased thugs, and he could probably race straight up the middle, snatch the Books, and fly to the desert before they knew what had happened.
He squashed the impulse. Slow. Slow, Thomas.
“Torvil, you ungracious piece of meat,” a gruff voice said from the tent to his right. He glanced. A Scab stepped past the flap and glared at him. “Your brother is dying in here and you’re looking for women where there are none?”
For a moment Thomas was frozen by indecision. He’d spoken to Scabs before; he’d even spoken at length to their supreme leader’s daughter, Chelise.
“Answer me!” the Scab snorted.
He decided. He walked straight on and turned only partially so as not to expose his entire face.
“You’re as blind as the bats who cursed you. Am I Torvil? And I would be so lucky to find a woman in this stinking place.”
He turned and moved on. The man cursed and stepped back into the tent.
“Easy,” William whispered. “That was too much.”
“It’s how they would speak.”
The Scabs had retired for the night, but hundreds still loitered. Most of the tents had their flaps tied open, baring all to any prying eye. The camp where he’d met Chelise had been strewn with woven rugs dyed in purple and red hues. Not so here. No children, no women that he could see.
They passed a group of four men seated cross-legged around a small, smoky fire burning in a basin of oil-soaked sand. The flames warmed a tin pot full of the white, pasty starch they called sago. Made from the roots of desert wheat. Thomas had tasted the bland starch once and announced to his men that it was like eating dirt without all the flavor.
All four Scabs had their hoods withdrawn. By the light of fire and moon, these did not look like fearless suicidal warriors sworn to slaughter the women and children of the forests. In fact, they looked very much like his own people.
One of them raised light gray eyes to Thomas, who averted his stare.
It took Thomas and William fifteen minutes to reach the camp’s center. Twice they had been noticed; twice they had passed without incident. But Thomas knew that getting into the camp in the dead of night wouldn’t be their challenge. Finding the Books and getting them out would be.
The large central tent was actually a complex of about five tents, each guarded. From what he could determine, they’d come at the complex from the rear.
The canvas glowed a dull orange from the torches ablaze inside. The sheer size of the tents, the soldiers who guarded them, and the use of color collectively boasted of Qurong’s importance. Horde dyes came from brightly colored desert rocks ground into a powder. The dye had been applied to the tent’s canvas in large barbed patterns.
“This way.”
Thomas veered into an open passage behind the complex. He pulled William into the shadows and spoke in a whisper. “What do you think?”
“Swords,” William said.
“No fight!”
“Then make yourself invisible. There are too many guards. Even if we get inside, we’ll meet others there.”
“You’re too quick with the sword. We’ll go in as guards. They wear the light sash around their chests, you saw?”
“You think we can kill two without being seen? Impossible.”
“Not if we take them from the inside.”
William glanced at the tent’s floor seam. “We have no idea what or who’s inside.”
“Then, and only then, we will use our swords.” Thomas whipped out his dagger. “Check the front.”
William stepped to the edge of the tent and peered around. He returned, sword now drawn. “Clear.”
“We do this quickly.”
They understood that surprise and speed would be their only allies if the room was occupied. They dropped to their knees, and Thomas ran the blade quickly along the base of the tent with a long ripping slash that he prayed would go unheard.
He jerked the canvas up and William rolled inside. Thomas dove after him.
They came up in a room lit by a flickering torch flame. Three forms lay to their left, and William leaped for one that was rising. These were clearly the servants’ quarters. But the cry of a servant could kill them as easily as any sword.
William reached the servant before he could turn to see what the disturbance was. He clamped his hand around the Scab’s face and brought the sword up to his neck.
“No!” Thomas whispered. “Alive!”
Keeping hold of the startled servant, William stepped toward the others, smashed the butt of his knife down on the back of the sleeping man’s head, and then repeated the same blow on the third.
The Scab in William’s arms began to struggle.
“She’ll wake the whole tent,” William objected. “I should kill her!”
A woman? Thomas grabbed her hair and brought his own dagger up to her throat. “A sound and you die,” he whispered. “We’re not here to kill, you understand? But we will if we have to.”
Her eyes were like moons, wide and gray with terror.
“Do you understand?”
She nodded vigorously.
“Then tell me what I want to know. No one knows that you saw us. I’ll knock you out so that no one can accuse you of betrayal.”
Her face wrinkled with fear.
“You would rather have me kill you? Be sensible and you’ll be fine. A bump on the head is all.”
She didn’t look persuaded, but neither did she make any sound.
“The Books of Histories,” Thomas said. “You know them?”
Thomas felt a moment’s pity for the woman. She was too horrified to think, much less speak. He released her hair.
“Let her go.”
“Sir, I advise against it.”
“You see? He advises against it,” Thomas said to the woman. “That’s because he thinks you’ll scream. But I think better of you. I believe that you’re nothing more than a frightened girl who wants to live. If you scream, we’ll have to kill half the people in this tent, including Qurong himself. Cooperate and we may kill no one.” He pressed the blade against her skin.
“Will you cooperate?”
She nodded.
“Release her.”
“Sir—”
“Do it.”
William slowly let his hand off her mouth. Her lips trembled but she made no sound.
“Good. You’ll find that I’m a man of my word. You may ask Chelise, the daughter of Qurong, about me. She knows me as Roland. Now te
ll me. Do you know of the Books?”
She nodded.
“And are they in these tents?”
Nothing.
“I swear, woman, if you insist on—”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Yes? Yes, of course he’d come for precisely this, but to hear her say that the Books of Histories, those ancient writings of such mythic power, were here at this very moment . . . It was more than he’d dared truly believe.
“Where?”
“They are sacred! I can’t . . . I would be killed for telling you. The Great One allows no one to see them! Please, please I beg you—”
“Keep your voice down!” he hissed. They were running out of time. At any moment someone would come bursting in.
Thomas lowered his blade. “Fine then. Kill her, William.”
“No, please!” She fell to her knees and gripped his robe. “I’ll tell you. They are in the second tent, in the room behind the Great One’s bedchamber.”
Thomas raised his hand to William. He dropped to one knee and scratched an image of the complex into the sand. “Show me.”
She showed him with a trembling finger.
“Is there any way into this room besides through the bedchamber?”
“No. The walls are strung with a . . . a . . . metal . . .”
“A metal mesh?”
“Yes, yes, a metal mesh.”
“Are there guards in these rooms here?” He pointed to the adjoining rooms.
“I don’t know. I swear, I don’t—”
“Okay. Then lie down and I will spare your life.”
She didn’t move.
“It will be one knock on the head and you’ll have your excuse along with the others. Don’t be irrational!”
She lay in her bed and William hit her.
“Now what?” William asked, standing from the unconscious form.
“The Books are here.”
“I heard. They are also in a virtual vault.”
“I heard.”
Thomas faced the flap leading from the room. Apparently no alarm had been raised.
“As you said, we don’t have all night,” William said.
“Let me think.”
He had to find more information. They now knew that the Books not only existed, but lay less than thirty yards from where he stood. The find gripped him in a way he hadn’t expected. There was no telling how valuable the Books might be. In the other world, certainly, but even here! The Roush had certainly gone out of their way to conceal them. How had Qurong managed to lay his hands on them in the first place?