“We leave by foot,” Noxis yelled to the crowd, and Ky’s eyes remained on him. Besides Noxis’s older appearance and dark eyes, he looked similar to Cobaaron with the same stocky build, height, and strong jaw. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties, though Ky knew him to be much older. He had a worn expression, as if life had somehow made him hard. Whenever he glimpsed his brother, Ky saw only pride and a great, unwavering loyalty. There was no doubt Noxis valued Cobaaron, and would follow him with allegiance to the end. She liked him because of his loyalty to Cobaaron.
As they began their march, women that were waiting in the carriages stepped out, and warriors surrounded the women, five men on each side while several rows of ten between the next woman. The few women that wished to stay moved out of the way as the warriors engulfed the rest.
Huntra moved to the front at a slow pace, and they began their journey. Ky suspected they would be out of the city and past the courtyard, by the time the last of the warriors and women left the square.
Ky put her arms around Cobaaron’s waist and leaned against his bare back, enjoying the impulse from their magical union to keep him near. Cobaaron took one of her hands, twining their fingers. Ky inhaled a deep breath, knowing the journey wouldn’t be easy. She was thankful to have him for protection, but most of all she worried for the women following. They were going to have a difficult journey, and some would die. And worse yet, none would be risking her life if it wasn’t for Ky. It was a terrible thought that she didn’t want to dwell on.
Ky couldn’t shake her nerves, now that they were headed into circumstances unknown. She had no idea what would be in store for them, and she was reluctant to begin the journey and new life fraught with danger.
Ky wished she were braver. She wondered if the orb she received promising her courage truly did give her valor. She didn’t feel it.
One thing she was certain of, Cobaaron’s touch reaffirmed it, she had him. He seemed like the only real thing in a strange world. As long as she had him there was nothing to be afraid of. She possessively squeezed him tighter, determined to keep him close.
Huntra pranced along the corridor with big, heavy paws. At least he was ready to go. His eagerness made it seem he’d been waiting to leave since the moment they arrived. “Cobaaron?” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Are snow tigers rare?” she asked, curiously.
“Very,” Cobaaron replied. “They never leave the snow caps of Tarmesh. I’ve only seen one other snow tiger this far from the caps, and that was because a trader was selling it for a steep price.” He paused before adding, “They’re very trusting animals. Once they get to know a human they’ll do anything they’re asked. It’s easy to capture them, but to be caught selling them means death. But most traders are usually criminals anyway so they don’t care about consequences if they don’t plan on getting caught.”
“So, the woman I saw in the cave was a trader?”
“Unlikely. If she was a trader, it would mean she was a witch and not to be trusted. I don’t know why anyone would send you a snow tiger, unless the archive is real and she knew about it and wanted you safe. To me, that is the more likely possibility. If that is the case, I want to know who she is and why would she help? That is what occupies my idle thoughts at the present. Huntra seems to know something we do not.” He fell quiet again.
She wanted to know what he was thinking, and cleared her mind to try to listen to his thoughts. “There is nothing to eavesdrop on, Ky. If there is something to this archive, then maybe plenty of people already know about this prophecy. It bothers me that she came when I left when I never should’ve left you; you were my mission. It’s a scary thought if she led me to my men so she could speak to you. If that is true, that is powerful magic and beyond a witch’s capability.”
“So you don’t trust Huntra?”
“Oh, no. I do,” Cobaaron stressed with a nod. “He’s definitely a snow tiger, and he would protect you to the death. If he meant harm, he could have killed you before you saw him. If he was told to kidnap you, it would be done already. Now, let’s stop talking. We’re approaching the end of the tunnel.”
Cobaaron sniffed the air as they approached. “I don’t smell anything anymore. That is a good sign,” he supposed, as bones crushed under the feet of everyone in the courtyard. Huntra was walking cautiously, but it was impossible for him to avoid the skeletons considering his paws were as large as serving platters.
Marching in formation made traveling silently impossible. Cobaaron’s voice came into her thoughts, “Ky, I had an idea. Change me. Make it so my men can hear my thoughts when I want to give them orders.” Ky wished it, saying his exact words in her head, and tried to will him to change.
“Get off the bones,” she heard a warrior whisper to the woman he was protecting. Slowly the crunching of the bones ceased, except where Huntra treaded. Cobaaron’s plan worked. They could follow his orders wordlessly.
They narrowed in on the front gate. The two huge doors were closed, but that didn’t stop Huntra. He pressed his nose in the gap between the doors, nudging the heavy wood, forcing it to creak open. Dust and bits of rock fell from the old timber and metal.
“Oh, I feel something,” a woman whimpered. She sounded frightened. When no one responded, she exclaimed, “I’m cold!” A warrior shushed her.
Huntra balanced as he cautiously walked the narrow pathway at the edge of a hill that sloped downward several acres. Mountain stretched tall and wide above them, only feet away from the narrow path they navigated. The valley below extended across the vast, flat land, with thousands of deep puddles amongst golden wild grass. The brown moon gave off a faint glow that made the water an eerie dirty gray. She thought she saw shadows moving around them, but she couldn’t be sure in such a dim light. “Huntra, we have to climb the mountain. It’s the only way. We can’t go down there. Hurry, boy,” Cobaaron whispered. Huntra veered toward the steep mountain and began jumping up the rocky terrain. His words were so urgent it made Ky nervous. She closed her eyes and listened in on his thoughts. “I shouldn’t have done this,” she heard Cobaaron chide himself. “I shouldn’t have brought the women. This is a death trap.”
“They knew it wasn’t going to be easy leaving the city,” she said to him.
“Ky, think to me. Don’t talk,” he replied silently.
A second later there was a clatter that came from within the walls of the courtyard. Someone kicked the armor of a skeleton. It went clinking along the floor, followed a moment later by a scream. “Oh, it’s got me,” the woman screamed.
“Run!” Cobaaron commanded to Huntra and all his men. Huntra shot off in a four-legged sprint up the mountain. Suddenly all around them, black shadows drifted out of the ground. Fear instantly struck her. Unnatural fear she didn’t recognize as her own consumed her with imaginable terror. The shadows surrounded them, ghostly figures of men with black cloaks and wide-open jaws. She was paralyzed with fright; she couldn’t even scream. She felt herself slide from the saddle, somehow passing through the handlebar. Gray flaky, dry hands grasped her; more shadowy figures clutched her fabric and seized her arms.
Another shadow glided toward her. Ky screamed silently. It captured her, yanking her off Huntra with a sudden jerk. Cobaaron felt her slide off and he tried to seize her, but failed as scores of shadows heaved her away. She slumped off Huntra as he continued to sprint up the mountain.
“No!” Cobaaron yelled, and bound off Huntra. He was quickly surrounded by the shadows. He fought to free himself of the hands that kept him from reaching her. Cobaaron and Ky were being separated. She wanted him to run, but he foolishly fought them off to get to her. She was amazed he had the ability to move at all, because she was overwhelmed the dread. He wasn’t paralyzed with fright, but he was wasting his bravery by not running. There were too many of them.
The shadow was pulling her into the ground. She didn’t feel her body sinking into the soil, but her feet began to seep into the solid earth like quicksand. “No! Ky!” Co
baaron screamed again, struggling to reach her. She sunk to her hips. “Fight, Ky. Fight! Don’t let the night squawkers pull you under!” Soon she was chest deep.
As if the night squawkers wanted him silenced, they swarmed him, instantly covering him, and forcing him to the ground. She was buried to her neck; they were taking her into the ground to suffocate her. She couldn’t move. He was only able to watch in horror as the night squawkers captured his feet and began to drag him away from her, down into the ground.
It was the sight of him being wrenched away from her that changed something inside of her. Ky’s fear boiled up inside of her into pure terror. Panic-stricken at the thought of losing him, her heart was pounding hard and fast. She couldn’t lose him. She didn’t want him to die, and certainly didn’t want it to be that day. She loved him too much, and just found him. It was cruel they had so little time together. But there was nothing to do, because she was pulled underground. Cobaaron’s screams were silenced from the layers of dirt above her.
Her skin began to glow, she could see her eyelids light, and instantly she ignited into a hot flame. Her fear of him dying made her burn with anger. She heard the night squawkers belch out a chilling shriek when she lit. Ky felt her entire body combust in an inferno of heat and light. Dirt blasted away from her. Her hair became a furious fire as it whipped in the air far above her, and her body blazed brighter than the sun. Somehow she levitated, as her light overpowered the darkness. She could hear night squawkers squealing as if in pain, and people around her begged her to stop. She didn’t know how. She wasn’t trying to shine. She simply wanted to get to Cobaaron; she wanted him to live.
“Ky,” she heard Cobaaron beg. His voice was faint, and she wasn’t use to hearing him sound weak. She was hurting him. With the realization of what she was doing she dropped to the hot, sizzling ground, and her radiance immediately extinguished to its dim glow.
The surrounding area looked like a bomb exploded. There was a huge crater in the earth around her. No one was close to her anymore. They had been thrown from her blast when she burst to light. The night squawkers were fleeing, creeping into the ground, screeching as if she had harmed them. But it wasn’t the end to Ky’s horror.
She had somehow burnt everyone around her. Bodies of the people closest to her were charcoal black. Those farther away were burnt badly to the point they had boils or parts of them were scorched. Then she saw Cobaaron.
“Cobaaron!” she screamed. Though his skin was blistered and burnt, amazingly he wasn’t charred, despite being the closest to her. He was lying on the ground face down. She clasped her hands to her mouth horrified of what she had done. “No,” she breathed out. She didn’t know if she should touch him. The sight of seeing him lying there was scarier than the night squawkers. He couldn’t be dead.
She didn’t want this. She would have rather died than hurt him. She began to cry.
Ky dropped to his side, and struggled as she tried rolling him over to see if he was alive. With shaky hands she tried heaving him onto his back, but with all her strength she couldn’t move his heavy, wide body. Huntra, who had exposed patches of skin and areas of ashy gray burnt fur, hobbled over to her. He saw she needed help and rolled Cobaaron by nudging him with his nose.
She couldn’t tell if Cobaaron was breathing or not. “No, please, anything but this.” She took his hand, hoping to feel a spark of their union. She sobbed when there was nothing. Her light flickered. His hands were soft gel. His skin was rubbing off at her touch, making him bleed. “No,” She cried.
His hand slid from hers, lifeless. In denial, she tried to see if his chest was rising and falling. He was completely motionless.
“No! I don’t want to be in this world without you,” she cried.
“Ky,” a soft voice spoke from behind her. Noxis pulled her away from him. He choked out his words, “He’s dead, Ky. He was a great man and fell, but he did fall.”
“You don’t know that!” she snapped at Noxis, and shook her head. Her glowing skin began to twinkle out, as she cried. She wanted to die. She welcomed death if Cobaaron wasn’t there to protect her. Why remain in a cruel world without the one person she loved. If her light was going to snuff out, she wanted to be by him. Ky wrenched away from Noxis’s grip on her shoulder. Noxis let go of her at the same time she yanked free, and she landed near Cobaaron’s side, cutting her hands on the jagged rocks. She ignored the pain, and instead embraced him, needing his closeness. “I don’t want to be in this world without you,” she whispered and cried.
Ky felt the worst pain of her life. With bleeding hands, she held her lover who was in death’s grasp. There was no other heartache that she ever experienced that compared to the loss of him. Her hands glowed hot, and burst on fire until it cooled with the pressure of her laying over Cobaaron. She continued to weep, knowing Noxis was watching, and waiting for her to get over mourning his death, but that wasn’t going to happen. She wanted to die where she lay. He would have to bury both of their bodies together.
But then his skin began to change. The dark burns on his shoulders and legs, along with the blisters all began to seep into his body and disappear. His chest cleared of boils. Ky sat up, amazed with what she was seeing. His burnt face returned to the same bronze features she knew and loved. She begged for his body to continue to heal. His fingers twitched. His legs, arms, and shoulders grew healthy new skin. Reassuring devotion soothed her heartache as the union rekindled with a surge of love and passion.
“Ky,” he breathed out in a groan. She gazed into his eyes, and cried, but this time from happiness. She smiled as her tears fell on him. He lifted a hand, slowly, brushing through her hair. Clearly he was weak, but alive. She showered him with kisses, and then hugged him tightly.
“I was flying in the midst of stars, crossing the heavens in the twinkle of an eye, moving so swiftly it appeared to be a tunnel of brilliant, white light. I was surrounded by deep calm and beautiful brightness. Then I heard you say you wanted me and didn’t want to be here without me. When I searched behind me, seeking to find you, I fell back.” Ky kissed him. His lips never felt so consoling. He hugged her tightly, not in a hurry to get up. He then wiped her tears, and confessed, “I’ll always come back for you—always.” Ky kissed him passionately for saying something so sweet. She embraced the union’s pull to remain in his arms.
Huntra nudged Cobaaron and Ky, breaking their kiss. Cobaaron slowly sat. He was weak but gradually got to his feet. “Go check the men, Noxis. I’m fine.” However, Cobaaron leaned against Huntra, clearly not strong yet. He scanned his surroundings, seeing there were several warriors dead. Many were burnt, and a woman died as well.
It was hard for Ky to look at them. Ky knew she had killed them, and not the night squawkers. She also knew how much Cobaaron valued his men. As warriors helped dig out partially stuck women and comrades, Ky kept quiet.
After having little rest, Cobaaron turned and made his way to his men. He helped warriors dig out stuck survivors, and they used the shallow holes as graves. Ky wondered if he was purposefully not looking at her, because of what she had done. He was very angry with her last time she put his men in danger, but this time she succeeded in killing them.
Deciding it was best to hide, she ducked behind Huntra who was happy to receive her touch. She held onto his neck and hugged him. “I’m so sorry, Huntra. I’m so sorry,” she uttered seeing missing patches of fur under his chin. She kept apologizing, because the words were somehow soothing, though they made her sob.
A few minutes later she heard Cobaaron approach. Ky wiped her face, wishing she had more time to be alone.
“Come on,” he muttered, and then sprung up onto Huntra. “We need to keep moving.” He held out his hand for Ky. She grasped it, and was hoisted up to sit behind him. “Through the swampland, Huntra.” When Huntra was reluctant to follow orders, Cobaaron added, “You’ll be safe. Night squawkers will not seek us again, knowing we can defeat them.”
They made their way down the st
eep slope while the warriors and women followed. Rocks started small avalanches until they reached the wet golden grass.
There was no end in sight to the vast valley. Seeing nothing but swamp made her realize just how far away the other city was. It seemed impossible to make it to Elder if they lost lives so soon. If it were only a glimpse of their expedition ahead, Ky would consider herself lucky to make it alive.
Ky looked back to see the long line of warriors and women. The men huddled around each woman. They kept a brisk march winding around marshy puddles. All she could think of was the nagging question of how many lives would they lose.
“Are you okay?” Cobaaron asked when she rested her head on his shoulder blade.
“Yes.” She managed to sound calmer than she felt and void of all emotion, the exact opposite of what she felt.
“Ky, I can read your mind. You’re not okay. Please stop. This is the marsh,” Cobaaron warned in a soothing voice. “Stop being so hard on yourself. We could have all been dead back there. They would have hauled us deep beneath the ground and left us to suffocate. We wouldn’t have been able to dig out, and would have been dead in minutes. It’s not a pleasant way to die. No man or warrior wants to be buried alive. And I told you; no one can fight a night squawker, except Stars apparently. Maybe run from them, but as you saw it doesn’t always work if you’re not fast enough or outnumbered. You saw them, thousands of them, waiting for us.
“Now, why don’t you look behind us one more time and see people you saved, not those we left behind. Not women you’re putting at risk just so you can be around my men. Don’t be sorry. Be anything but sorry. You saved them all.”
He leaned back when she didn’t look, and put his finger on her chin, gently turning her head to make her peer at the line of marching warriors. Ky watched them and the struggling women. They were hurrying to keep up with the long strides of the men. Ky knew exactly how hard it was to maintain a warrior’s pace.
The Coming Dawn Trilogy Page 18