by Ginn Hale
He pulled Ravishan into his arms and kissed him deeply. His lips were cold, but the inside of his mouth burned. Ravishan returned John’s embrace with almost painful intensity. He gripped John’s back, pulling him closer, so that their bodies pressed together tightly. The icy cold of Ravishan’s flesh warmed under John’s touch. Ravishan seemed to almost melt against John, his hands relaxing and slowly sliding down from John’s back to his hips. Then he opened the front of John’s pants.
The contact of Ravishan’s hand against the bare flesh of his groin sent a thrill through John’s entire body.
“You can’t know how much I’ve missed you,” Ravishan whispered.
“I do,” John assured him. “I’ve missed you too.”
John drew Ravishan to the bed. They fell back together, kissing and caressing each other as if they were starved men and this mounting ecstasy was their only sustenance.
Then, all too soon, they were both spent. John relaxed back against the mattress. There had been a pillow on the bed, but he thought they’d knocked it to the floor at some point. It didn’t matter; for the first time in what felt like months John thought he might sleep deeply and well. He kissed Ravishan’s brow lightly.
Then Ravishan pulled back from him and sat up. He began straightening the mess John had made of his clothes.
“I have to go,” Ravishan said breathlessly. “I only came to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye? No, don’t go.” Just the thought of it alarmed John. He sat up beside Ravishan.
“The kahlirash’im have rebelled against the Payshmura—”
“I know, but that doesn’t mean you need to go.” John pulled Ravishan into his arms and for a moment he relaxed against John.
“By morning, the ushiri’im will breach the wards of Vundomu. If they aren’t stopped, the entire fortress will be defeated.” Ravishan’s voice was firm. John felt him tensing against his embrace. “Their battle is our battle. I have to go.”
“There are too many ushiri’im,” John whispered. “You’ll be killed.”
Ravishan reached up and gently touched John’s cheek. He gazed through the darkness into John’s face.
“I won’t be killed. My god will protect me.”
“No! He won’t—he can’t—” John’s voice broke, and he realized that there were tears in his eyes. “He can’t protect you.”
“Jahn,” Ravishan said quietly, “I know that you don’t want to accept this, but you must. You have more strength than you realize and Basawar needs you. We don’t have time to wait any longer.”
“What?” John was so confused that he relaxed his hold on Ravishan.
“You have come from across the worlds for this,” Ravishan said gently. He stood and stepped back from the bed. “I should have realized sooner. I should have told you and made you ready for this battle. I’ve been so in love with the man that you are that I failed to see how much more you really are. But when I heard of all that you’ve done, in Yah’hali and here in Gisa, I couldn’t ignore the truth. Jahn, you were brought to me not just as a lover but as Parfir’s incarnation. You are the Rifter.”
John didn’t know how he’d expected this conversation to proceed, but it hadn’t been like this. He struggled to gather his thoughts.
“I know this must be hard to accept,” Ravishan said softly. “I should have told you sooner—”
“No, it’s not that,” John said. “I know you’re right. I guessed as much…But that isn’t the point. Even if I am the Rifter, you still shouldn’t go to Vundomu.”
“Your temple is there and so are your most devoted priests,” Ravishan replied. “As your Kahlil I must be there. I must defend them.”
“It’s suicide.” John bounded up and stepped close to Ravishan. “I saw you fighting the rashan’im. You nearly died. You can’t take them on as well as the ushiri’im.”
“I have faith in you, Jahn.”
“I don’t have the power that you think—” John began to protest, but Ravishan cut him off.
“Whether you were the Rifter or not, I would have to do this, Jahn. The kahlirash’im are fighting for everything I believe in. I have to go to them. I know it’s unfair of me to expect you to protect Vundomu, but I want you to know that I believe in you. I love you.” Ravishan returned the gentle kiss John had given him as they had lain in bed. Then he turned, slicing the Gray Space open with a swift motion of his hand, and was gone.
John felt as though he might crumple to the ground. His legs buckled. A terrible sickness washed through him. Between the guns of the rashan’im and the Silence Knives of the ushiri’im, Ravishan would be torn to pieces.
“You idiot!” John shouted. But he knew Ravishan was already miles away, risking his life like some kind of imbecile, like it didn’t matter if he died. As if he didn’t know that nothing mattered to John more.
John’s exhaustion evaporated in the face of his frustration, anger, and fear. He threw the door aside and charged down the stairs, taking the steps three at a time. A furious wind snapped and whirled around him. He would go to Vundomu and nothing would stop him.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
John sprinted despite cramps and aching, burning lungs. He pushed himself harder and faster. Muscle fibers in his calves and thighs ripped as he threw himself forward. Crippling pain wrenched through his legs and John drank it in. Strength surged up from his pain. He ran and his body burned, snow melting to vapor beneath his feet. He tore through miles of open road, passing lone riders and weary travelers like a streak of light in a sweeping storm.
A searing wind whirled out from his passage. It ripped branches from trees and hurled earth and snow aside. John leaped and the wind lifted him and sent him soaring. Where he struck the ground, stones ignited to glass. Overhead, black clouds gathered. Lightning crashed through the darkness.
John moved faster than muscle and bone could endure, and yet it was not fast enough. The sun rose, illuminating the charred remains of a farmhouse. Behind him, the city Amura’hyym’ir stood like an abandoned ruin and in the distance ahead John saw black plumes of smoke rising from Vundomu.
The huge fortress rose though a haze of smoke like a burning mountain. Its seven levels of terraced walls were studded with watchtowers and guns. Many of those on the three lowest levels were burning. Higher up, the dark banners with the scarlet moons of the kahlirash’im still waved.
At the foot of Vundomu thousands of soldiers massed. They filled the valley and moved like waves, washing up against the black walls, falling back and surging over. At this distance, the screams and shouts were faint. The roar of godhammers sounded like tiny bottle rockets. John felt the disturbing shudders of the Gray Space tearing open again and again.
John charged forward, praying that somewhere in the midst of those struggling masses Ravishan was still alive. He took the first ranks of soldiers by surprise, racing through their midst with a black storm crashing down in his wake. But the valley was thick with men and tahldi, and in seconds, the pike men turned their assault on John.
They closed their ranks around him and charged with long iron pikes. The metal shafts rent into John’s body. He choked on a cry of pain as a wild power surged through him. Suddenly the pikes cracked and burned to ash. John threw the men aside. He needed to get to Vundomu. It was all he could think of now.
Bullets punched into his back as he continued into the ranks of the army. Rashan’im broke off from their assault on Vundomu and charged John. All he could see were masses of bodies, tahldi, and soldiers in their green Bousim uniforms. A huge tahldi reared and brought its hooves down into John’s chest. His bones cracked and a wave of agony exploded through him. Blind fury surged through John.
He punched into the tahldi’s chest and its body split open. Hot blood washed over John. A foot soldier drove a pike into John’s side and he roared with rage. Lightning struck in fast bolts, rending through men and animals. The wind surged around John, hurling bodies aside.
And still there were miles of me
n between him and Vundomu. John screamed in frustration and the sound broke like thunder. The ground shuddered as John sprinted forward and then huge chasms split open, swallowing men, cannons, and animals. The deafening groans of the earth engulfed the shrieks and explosions of powder kegs. John raced onward.
The valley floor collapsed in John’s wake, leaving only small islands of stone where John had briefly stood. He threw himself forward and the storm lifted him. Lightning illuminated him, striking out from his furious glances. Thunder crashed through the skies. Where he struck ground, the earth crumbled and swallowed riders and soldiers by the hundreds.
John hardly noticed. He needed to reach Vundomu. He could feel the ushiri’im tearing the Gray Space much more intensely now. Even in the stench of blood and gunpowder, he smelled the sharp scent of searing ozone. He heard the scream of the Gray Space opening. The ushiri’im were high up inside Vundomu. John had only reached the fortress walls.
Desperately, the Bousim forces already inside Vundomu closed the fortress gates. Godhammers from the breached walls fired on John. John swung his hands up and the shells cracked and burned apart in midair. Flaming shrapnel pounded the men below.
John reached out and placed his hands on the gates. Bullets stung at him like insects. Arrows impaled his flesh, but he hardly cared now. He pushed his fingers into the thin crevice between the gate and fortress wall. He felt hard black iron and heavy machinery and then he wrenched the gate open. The engines that powered the gates screeched as their braking locks snapped apart. Pistons cracked, pipes burst, and hot oil gushed free. The gates trembled and then cracked and fell. Men plummeted to the ground as the walls shuddered with the impact of the massive gates.
John charged ahead, splitting walls and ripping open city gates. Behind him he felt the heat of oil fires surging up over the rubble. Through the thunder and pelting rain, he heard the screams of dying men, but he didn’t look back. He swore at the miles of stone that blocked his path, and in frustration, he wrenched open the entire third terrace of the fortress.
Massive shocks rocked the entire fortress. The higher terraces shuddered. Stones plummeted down from the walls. Ravishan was up there. John couldn’t let the higher terraces collapse. He forced his will into the structure of their stone and iron supports. As he charged forward, riding violent winds, he strengthened the distant towers and walled streets against the assault of his own passage.
He vaulted up from a crumbling walkway and the wind lifted him to the next terrace. The gaun’im’s forces hadn’t reached this high in Vundomu yet. The kahlirash’im’s banners still hung from the walls. The narrow lanes seemed abandoned. John threw himself into the wind and rose up again and again, cracking stones wherever he landed, collapsing walls, but always protecting the central column of Vundomu from the fury of flames and lightning. At last, John reached the heights of Vundomu. Below him, fires raged and black smoke billowed up into the churning storm clouds.
John heard the shriek of the Gray Space. An arc of flame seared up through the dark sky. John bounded over iron-tiled walls and landed in a courtyard. Bodies of kahlirash’im and ushiri’im littered the courtyard. At the far end of the courtyard a circle of some thirty kahlirash’im stood in front of the black-tiled mass of the Temple of the Rifter. Some held rifles ready; others were armed with only swords.
Another arc of flame shot up and two ushiri’im burst from the Gray Space. Instantly Ravishan exploded out of nowhere. He drove a Silence Knife into one of the ushiri’im. Then the second ushiri plunged his curse blade into Ravishan’s back. The kahlirash’im opened fire on the ushiri, but he escaped back into the Gray Space. Ravishan turned and dived into the Gray Space after him.
John felt his heart clench and a geyser of rage tore through him.
Three more ushiri’im surged out of the Gray Space. The kahlirash’im fired on them, but John was already charging into them. He caught two of them and simply burned through their bodies with his bare hands. The third ushiri he grasped by the throat and slammed into the wall of the temple. The man’s head dropped to John’s feet as his body crumpled against the black tiles of the temple.
The kahlirash’im stared at John wide eyed. Three of them dropped to their knees. John hardly saw them.
All he could think of was Ravishan, lost and dying somewhere in the Gray Space. He felt the wavering distortions of ushiri’im all around him. He reached for the closest, pulling the man’s body free of the Gray Space. He wasn’t Ravishan. John crushed the ushiri’s throat and hurled him aside. He tore one ushiri after another from the Gray Space. They impaled him, shot him, and drove Silence Knives into his flesh, but John felt none of it. He crushed them and continued his desperate search.
He felt the ushiri’im disappearing, fleeing deeper into the Gray Space where he could no longer sense them. At last only one faint distortion remained. John plunged his hands through the Gray Space. Sick revulsion washed over him, but he caught hold of an arm. He ripped Ravishan out of the Gray Space. The decapitated body of an ushiri fell out with him. Ravishan was limp in John’s arms. The hilt of a black curse blade jutted from just below his right shoulder blade. The urge to pull it out of Ravishan’s flesh flickered through John, but he didn’t trust himself to even touch the knife. Blood welled from the wound and pooled around John’s fingers.
“Jahn,” Ravishan whispered, but he said nothing more.
He felt like ice in John’s arms and his skin didn’t grow warmer. Even his blood seemed cold.
Lightning hammered the walls of Vundomu. The storm howled. John fought to suppress his horror and loss. He could still feel Ravishan’s pulse.
John looked to the kahlirash’im who knelt in front of the temple.
“I need a healer! Now!” John shouted over the raging storm.
There was only the briefest pause and then they all bolted back into the temple. John carefully lifted Ravishan and carried him into the shelter of the temple. Inside there were hundreds of other people, not just kahlirash’im, but workmen and women. There were even a few children. All of them stared in silence as John passed them. Most of them dropped to their knees. John wanted to tell them to stop, but he didn’t have the time.
“Our healer is here, my most holy lord.” A kahlirash held the door to a makeshift infirmary open for John.
As he carried Ravishan through, John realized that the kahlirash addressing him was Wah’roa. Blood and soot caked his face and body.
“Thank you, Wah’roa,” John said.
For an instant Wah’roa appeared startled at hearing his own name, but then an expression like happiness lit his bloodied face and he bowed down to the floor.
The old priest in the infirmary watched John with wide eyes. John gently laid Ravishan down on one of only two empty cots. All around the bleeding, ruined bodies of men lay shrouded beneath bandages and sheets.
“Save him,” John told the priest.
The old priest stared at the hilt of the curse blade jutting from Ravishan’s back. He dropped to his knees.
“Please forgive me, most holy lord, but I cannot bear his wound—”
“Get off the fucking floor!” John snapped. Ravishan was dying. He didn’t have time for groveling.
“My lord, I cannot—”
“I’ll bear the wound,” John said. “I’ll bear every damn wound in this room! Just save him.”
Slowly, the priest rose to his feet.
“I will do all I can, my most holy lord.”
To Be Continued...
Characters appearing in Arc Six
Arren— Head of fighter’s district in the Warren.
Ashan’ahma – An ushiri studying at Rathal’pesha.
Alidas—A rider for the Bousim family; partly crippled.
Amha’in’Bousim–Lady Bousim, 3rd wife, exiled to the north.
Bil—Called Behr in Basawar.
Daru— Fai’daum priest.
Eriki’yu— Boy in the Fai’daum Warren.
Fenn— Fai’daum fighte
r recently drafted from the stables.
Fikiri Bousim–An ushiri: son of Lady Bousim.
Gin’yu— Fai’daum Scout Captain.
Giryyn—Fai’daum priest.
Hann’yu–An ushman exiled to the north: specializes in healing.
Issusha’im–The Payshmura oracles.
Ji Shir’korud—Dog demon; one of the Fai’daum.
John—Called Jahn , later Jath’ibaye.
Kansa—Faidaum witch in training.
Lam— Fai’daum priest.
Lafi’shir— Fai’daum Ground Commander.
Laurie—Called Loshai in Basawar.
Lyyn— Craftsman in the Fai’daum Warren.
Nivoun Bousim— Governor of the Bousim’s northern holdings.
Parfir—The earth god.
Rifter—The destroyer incarnation of Parfir.
Ravishan—The most promising of the ushiri at Rathal’pesha.
Rousma—Ravishan’s sister.
Sabir—The leader of Fai’daum.
Saimura—Ji’s son.
Serahn—Powerful Ushman in the Black Tower of Nurjima.
Sheb’yu— Fai’daum fighter and spy.
Tai’yu–Fai’daum fighter.
Tanash — Fai’daum witch in training.
Wah’roa—Leader of the kahlirash’im at Vundomu.
Common Terms and Words
and ———————-iff
animal / it ————shir
asshole —————-wahbai
bark (tree) ————istana
bee (honey) ———behr
best ———————-sho
black ——————-yasi
blonde hide ———jahn
blood ——————-usha
blue ——————— holima
bone ——————-sumah
bones (holy) ———issusha
book ———————lam