Riders swapped places with those on foot; only the children stayed on the beasts. After about twenty minutes, the temperature dropped and clouds covered the sun. Glancing along the southern slope of the mountain, she could see a curtain of rain heading for them. Moving fast.
She was on foot for a second time when fine droplets started hitting her face, and a shout came from the rear of the group. Lungs laboring in the thin air, her shirt now damp from a combination of sweat and drizzle, Imhara turned. She shivered, not just because of the drop in temperature or her wet shirt.
The first patrol had reached their rest site. Black-clad Na’Hord swarmed over the flat escarpment like honey-crawlers. Mounts were exchanged in an economy of motion. The lead riders headed up the sloping trail.
Light, they were at best ten minutes from catching them.
Water teemed down the rock faces and bare hill. One Vorc slipped, its claws scrabbled for purchase. The patrol took up a staggered formation, and the speed of their ascent slowed.
Gathering her breath, Imhara let loose a shrill whistle. At the head of their group, Rassan turned in the saddle. She pumped her fist twice and he acknowledged her signal with a wave.
Arek drew level with her. Sweat shone on his face, and his rain-wet hair stuck flat to his head. “We pick up the pace?”
Her smile was grim. “Yes.” She wiped her face with her sleeve. “From now until we get through Skadda Pass.”
As the sides of the mountain converged into a narrow corridor on the rock-strewn trail, Imhara enjoyed the relief it brought from being exposed to the edge of the storm. Rain only came in gusts instead of steadily. But entering the pass meant the incline flattened out, not quite as demanding on beasts or people. The call went down the line for riders to move three abreast, pulling the group in tight rather than spreading out along the trail.
Wind howled through the passage, whipping hair and clothes in all directions, sometimes strong enough to buffet those on their feet. It was fortunate the pass possessed two sides, rather than one and a sheer cliff face.
The caravan passed the scree, and Barrca and the other three Na’Hord rejoined them. As they did a distant howl carried on the breeze. Imhara glanced over her shoulder. Her blood ran colder than the snow on the far peaks.
Four Vorc with riders had entered the narrowed passage. As she watched, another three crested. Less than five minutes behind them.
“Maag! Ayson!” Barrca’s bellow echoed back from the steep slopes.
The young Na’Chi woman and human man dropped back on their beast. Maag pointed to the scree, and the small group moved well back from the drop area.
Imhara heard the hiss of rain on rock before she felt it stinging her face.
“That’s sleet!” Arek shouted, and flipped up the collar of his shirt to protect his skin.
Imhara grimaced and copied his action, squinting against the tear-jerking wind, trying to see how far ahead the lead riders were. One rider disappeared around a bend and her heart jolted.
They were almost through the pass.
Claws scrabbling on stone carried on the wind. More howls reverberated off the walls, amplified in the enclosed space. Imhara didn’t dare look.
“Ride hard!” She sucked in deep lungfuls of air. “Run!”
Those closest did, urging others on foot ahead of them as they went. Some riders picked up a third passenger. Heart pounding in her chest, Imhara ignored the growing ache in the muscles of her legs and sides.
A Kaal Clan war cry split the air. A swift glance showed Barrca and another of her Na’Hord engaged in battle with the lead Vorc-Rider. Her gait faltered.
“Keep going!” Arek grasped her arm.
“They’ll be overrun!” She gasped.
Steel on steel rang out.
Thunder rumbled so hard the ground seemed to shift beneath her foot. Then, as small rocks and pebbles danced on the ground in front of her, she realized it had.
Another swift glance and a mass of rock, slate gray, almost black from the rain and sleet, rolled down the mountainside, gathering speed and debris—bushes, shrubs, other boulders—with terrifying intensity. The sound of them smashing together grew to a deafening roar.
The ground heaved. A sharp crack split the air. An entire overhang collapsed behind the battle, blocking the passageway, stopping the main Na’Hord force from reaching them. Debris spewed upward and outward. The vibration rattled under the ground, up through her boots, and into her body.
As if the shelf of rock mimicked the release valve in a dam, another section of the mountain broke free close to the top of the scree, this one in direct line with Barrca and the others.
“Light, no!” Imhara tried to shout a warning to them. The terrifying rumble swallowed her hoarse scream.
The wall of rock skimmed the slope so fast it was like watching floodwater sweep into a crevice. Hideously black, bone-shattering, sudden death. It impacted the Vorc-Riders, Barrca, the other Na’Hord, Ayson, and Maag in less than a heartbeat.
Imhara’s chest squeezed tight. She could feel but not hear herself screaming. More dust and debris exploded along the narrow corridor, rolling toward them in a suffocating wave.
Arek’s arm hooked around her waist. “Down!”
She barely heard him as he pulled her to the far wall. Another upheaval. The earth fell out from beneath them. They hit the ground in a tangle of arms and legs.
Arek rolled her under him. He cradled her head to his chest. The pain in her shredded her heart.
Gone! Her people were gone!
She screamed.
And the world came apart around them.
Chapter 39
“WE need to keep moving.” Rassan’s hoarse voice rose above the sound of people coughing, groaning in pain, or quietly grieving. “We’re vulnerable here.”
The clatter and smashing of rock drew terrified cries from the children and momentarily cut off the crying. The rattling died down.
The wind howled, a mournful sound as it forced its way over and around the new mountain of rock blocking the passageway behind them. There was no way anyone was going to be able to shift it or climb over it. The pass was permanently sealed.
Arek released a relieved breath and eyed the unstable slope. Anything could set off a new slide. Rassan was right. They needed to traverse the rest of the trail and clear the pass.
He winced as he pushed to his feet, his boots squelching in the fine mush of sleet and dust. The ice was quickly melting now that Oreese had stopped summoning the storm. Clouds were breaking up and being scattered by the mountain winds while the sun was pushing its way through them.
Arek rubbed at the tender spot on his thigh where he’d landed on a sharp rock when he’d taken Imhara to the ground. It was the worst of many aches bruising his body but not the worst injury sustained by the group huddled along the bend in the trail.
“Up! Everyone up!” The Na’Chi warrior kneed his mount along the ragged line of survivors. “Jawn, get these children back on their mounts. Anyone who’s injured also needs to ride. Once we reach The Overhang, we’ll stop and tend ourselves. Head them out!”
Rassan drew level with him. Dust had smeared to mud on the warrior’s face. The garish mask of gray and black painted every face in the group. It coated hair and clothing, and even the animals’ wool had changed color to a uniform ash gray.
“You all right?”
Arek nodded. “Sore but nothing serious. We were on the very edge of the rockslide. Thank the Lady for the wall we ended up against. It deflected the worst of the rubble over us. Most of the blood you can scent comes from minor cuts. Ricocheting debris.”
“And Imhara?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the lone figure standing with her arms wrapped around her staring back at the blocked corridor. In the minutes after the ground had stopped shaking, when he’d realized he was still alive and not crushed under half the mountain, he’d been overwhelmed with relief to feel Imhara moving beneath him.
&n
bsp; “Battered.” The sound of her hoarse, gut-deep sobbing had pierced Arek all the way to his soul. He’d been unable to do anything but hold her until it eased. “Spirit more than body.”
She hadn’t spoken since the landslide, just taken up silent vigil at the edge, her gaze haunted, hollow, like her heart had taken the brunt of the slide.
He sucked in a shuddering breath and scrubbed a hand over his face, grimacing at the grit that came away and the sting of cuts yet undiscovered on his skin. “There’s no chance anyone will be coming through Skadda Pass now.”
No way Barrca or any of the others could have survived, either.
“The pass had to be closed.” The Na’Chi’s solemn gaze was tinged with a pale gray as he surveyed the damage. “Maag and Ayson spent weeks studying the scree. They knew exactly what they had to do and how far they should have been back, but I don’t think they anticipated having to do it under the pressure they did. Yet, Lady bless them, they still made sure the pass was sealed.” His mouth pulled down at the corners and he blinked hard, his voice rough and low as he spoke. “Barrca knew that. So did the others. It doesn’t make their deaths any easier to accept, but I don’t think any of them would regret their actions.”
Arek swallowed several times to ease the tightness in his throat. His grief might not have the same depth as those around him, but the loss of six people he’d been getting to know still impacted.
“The Lady will guide them on their Final Journey.” He drew in a steadying breath. “And we’ll remember them in our hearts.”
Rassan gave a tight nod. “We’ll mourn them properly once we get home.” Around them people were rising, their movements subdued, chatter hushed. The Na’Chi tilted his head in Imhara’s direction. “Shall I get her?”
“No, I’ll do it. You’re going to have to lead these people for a while.”
The warrior hesitated a moment, then sighed. “She’ll try and take responsibility for this.”
“I know.” Arek knew the sickening sensation of watching friends die, and the aftermath of wondering if you could have done anything differently. His smile was more a baring of teeth than anything joyous. “Leave us a mount and we’ll follow shortly.”
Arek waited until the last of the group disappeared around the bend in the trail before walking back to Imhara. He took his time, the loose shale and other debris crunching underfoot. The way she still hugged her arms around her waist gave her a fragile appearance.
He knew she was strong, he’d seen her fortitude so many times in the last few weeks, yet now he saw no evidence of it in her bowed shoulders and head. And as he stepped around her, the expression on her face ripped at his innards.
Tear tracks sliced through the dusty mask on her cheeks; her violet gaze stared through him, raw with grief and pain.
She looked shattered.
“Imhara.” Three times he called her name before drawing a response. Her brow furrowed and she blinked. “It’s time to leave.”
“Leave?” Her question was flat, lifeless, unlike the spark of dull anger in her violet gaze. It gave him hope. “We can’t leave. What if”—her jaw flexed and she swallowed hard—“what if one of them is alive? We have to dig them out.”
Moving to one side, he waved a hand at the massive pile of boulders and rock, some as large as a crofter’s hut. “No one survived this, Imhara.”
She hissed a curse, expression twisting, a flurry of guilt, anguish, and fury streaking across her face. It was better than the haunted look. She shook her head. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“Half a mountain came down. It could take weeks to find them.” Arek ground his teeth together, hating he had to do this to her. “Time. Injuries. No food or water. Exposure to the elements. Take your pick. Do you think they’d survive any or all of those things?”
A whimper escaped her mouth before she could cover it. Her violet eyes welled with tears. Arek’s throat closed over and he had to clear it twice before being able to speak.
“You’ve a group of people heading down the trail who need you more than ever.” He gestured behind her. She shook her head again. “Focus on them, not the dead.”
Beneath her dusty mask, Imhara’s cheeks paled. “They shouldn’t have died! Not like this!”
Another curse, this one aimed at him, then she struck out, a clenched fist that he blocked with his arm. Closing his hand around her wrist, he jerked her in against him. She pummeled him, a wild bout of struggling interspersed with punches and heated words.
Wrapping his arms around her halved the power behind them. Had she wanted to, she could have jerked free but she didn’t. He took the impacts silently, knowing grief drove her and not any motive to cause him harm.
Gradually, her actions lost strength, the blows stopped, and she just stood inside his embrace, her whole body shaking.
Arek pressed his forehead against hers and smoothed a hand along her back. “The day I was captured by Meelar’s raiders, my best friend and I were a part of a patrol attempting to rescue the crofters the slaver had taken from their village. Despite our best efforts, that rescue failed, and I watched my friend take a dagger in the side. The wound bled like yours. I don’t know if he survived.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “Do you know how many times I’ve replayed that memory? Or asked myself if I could have done something different to avoid it ever happening? You can’t change what happened, Imhara.”
“The hurt doesn’t stop.” Imhara’s whisper-thin reply squeezed the heart in his chest.
“No, it doesn’t, but you can always choose to hold on to something else to ease it.”
“Like what?”
“Why do you think Barrca and the others stayed where they were in the pass, fighting the Na’Hord patrol and using their Gifts to create the slide?” he asked, softly. Her forehead rubbed against his as she shook her head. “They did it so others would know this. . . .”
He brushed his lips against hers, putting all his concentration into creating the softest of touches, letting her feel the heat of his heart and his strength.
“A kiss?” A whisper of sound against his lips, confused yet breathless.
“Life,” he murmured. “Hope. Freedom. They stayed and fought to give us all these things, Imhara. They believed in your dream, your parents’ legacy.”
She hiccupped, a half gasp, a half sob. Her hands fisted in his shirt as she seized onto the strength in his words. He held her against him, pain and joy mixing with equal intensity inside him as she leaned on him, in every sense of the word. A gentle heat burned close to his heart and spread outward with every beat.
A hollow grating and crack of rock against rock tumbling down the ruined scree reminded him they couldn’t linger.
“Imhara, we have to go,” he murmured. “It’s not safe here.”
She shuddered but nodded and let him lead her to the shaggy beast tethered along the trail. He helped her mount first, then swung up behind her, feeling the absence of her during those few seconds. But once settled he pulled her back in against him and took up the reins.
In his arms, Imhara turned and cast one last look at the landslide. Her throat worked, and her eyes still welled with tears, but her chin lifted.
“Lady bless your Journeys!” Her hoarse call echoed back off the walls of the pass. “The Kaal Clan lives because of you all!” She met his gaze then, chin trembling. A soul-deep weariness and sadness still shadowed it, but beneath it lay a spark of the strength he’d come to admire. “Let’s go, Arek. Let’s go home.”
Chapter 40
FIVE days saw a new Kaal caravan on its way to human territory and Sacred Lake. During the first two days, Arek helped the Clan mourn and celebrate the lives of those who’d died on the mountain. The memorial ceremony was attended by every man, woman, and child in the Clan: Na’Reish, Na’Chi, and human.
On day three, the first early winter storm struck the lower reaches of the Skadda Mountains. Scouts sent out reported snowdrifts blocking the roadway to Whitewa
ter River. The drifts melted within a day, but the warning was clear. If they didn’t go soon, they ran the risk of being trapped in the fortress all winter.
The last few days were spent outfitting and organizing supplies and transport for a small mixed-race group of Gifted and non-Gifted to accompany Imhara across the border.
The morning of the journey, again everyone in the Clan turned out to see them off. With a feast being held the night before, farewells were brief, yet as Arek nudged the woolly sides of his beast with his knees and headed out after Imhara and Rassan, he could feel the hopes and excitement of the people standing on the walls and lining the roadway.
Arek’s journey by boat on Whitewater River proved significantly different to his arrival so many weeks ago. Two days’ travel downstream brought them to the landing at the very eastern tip of the Skadda Ranges. After a final night in Kaal territory, sleeping at the edge of the forest that bordered their land with the Southern Province, they crossed into human territory the following morning.
As if sensing his excitement at returning to familiar territory, the beast beneath Arek’s knees snorted and shifted restlessly. Chuckling, he pulled the reins in tight and slapped its thickly muscled neck.
“Easy, we’ll be moving in a moment, my friend,” he murmured.
Until this moment he hadn’t let himself consider the possibility of returning to Sacred Lake, but now excitement and impatience mixed with a healthy dose of nerves and uncertainty. So much waited at the end of this trip. Taking a deep breath, Arek schooled himself to patience.
The sun penetrated the canopy overhead, creating dappled shadows and warm patches amongst the undergrowth. Out of the foothills of the mountains, the trees here had yet to lose their leaves, the lingering warmer weather extending their season.
“Arek!”
Rassan’s hail turned him in the saddle. The Na’Chi stood beside his mount, gesturing for him to join him and Imhara at the edge of the forest. The half-dozen others in the party also stood by their beasts, and the way they glanced between Rassan and Imhara warned him something was amiss.
Allegiance Sworn (A NOVEL OF THE LIGHT BLADE) Page 32