Arkanaeus unslung the conch and put it to his lips. He breathed air into his chest and released it, sending a low but powerful HAROOOOOOO into the air.
He let go of the conch and grinned at Alexandra.
Alexandra smiled, a bit confused. “What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
Men and women appeared from the northern end of the valley, having emerged from hidden doors and passageways. They clung to the trees and stayed behind the bushes, but she could see the fearlessness in their eyes. The years had not been kind to them, and instead of battle-hardened faces, she saw faces that had been toughened by the grueling process of surviving in the mountains.
Then those faces changed.
Eyes widened, mouths opened in wonder, lips moved as people breathed words of astonishment. A small tornado of wind brushed up against Alexandra, and she looked down to see that Arkanaeus had disappeared. In his place was a large, sleek tiger with fiery orange fur and eyes that seemed to burn like glowing coals. He looked up at her, twitched his whiskers, and let out a deep, satisfied growl.
Alexandra smiled at him and then cast herself upward with a single flap of her wings, up into the shower of sunlight angling into the crevasse. She spun in that golden light like a top, smiling and stretching her arms, extending her wings as far as they would go. Mist curled around her body, sparkling in the light, and then, as weightless as one of her own feathers, she let herself descend to the earth where her naked feet once more met the grass.
She made a pyramid with her fingers, exactly as Arkanaeus had done, and touched it to her forehead. Her eyes were on the men and women staring at her from the trees.
She called to them: “Light guide your steps!”
The valley erupted in cheers. Small girls and boys were lifted onto their fathers’ shoulders to get a better look. Acolyte teenagers who had read about Zandra, Champion of the Breeze, in smuggled, illegal comic books began to whoop and beat the air with their wings. A few Feral men phased into birds so they could fly up and get a better look, as they had heard of her legendary beauty. The legends were true. Alexandra’s hair was long and full, her body slender and strong. When she lifted one arm for silence, the voices quieted.
Arkanaeus was on all fours by her side, sleek and savage in his tiger form. She reached down and opened her hand. He lifted his feline snout and nuzzled it against her fingers, then lowered the front part of his body and bowed.
“I am deeply, deeply grateful,” Alexandra said.
He let out a low purr. She smiled at him.
Then, gazing at the crowd forming in front of her, Alexandra began to speak.
Chapter 57
Iolus stood in open-mouthed wonder.
They were in the belly of a deep mine. The descent had been a perilous one, full of low tunnels and crumbling bridges that arched over deep pits. There were times when Basher had not been able to follow, his body too big to squeeze through the narrow openings. Iolus had solved the problem by blasting the stone apart, causing more than one avalanche. By the time they reached their destination, Coscoros’s and Leticia’s faces were pale and covered in sweat.
“There she is,” Iolus said. “My prize.”
Aikon lay on a stone altar in the center of the cavernous room. Torches lined the walls, lit by Iolus’s magic. They bathed the room in a hellish glow and the sword, Aikon, seemed to drink the light into its shimmering blade.
“What’s so special about that thing?” Basher said, reaching back to grasp the handle of his warhammer. “Looks pretty flimsy to me. Like I could break it over my knee if I wanted.”
Coscoros shook his head in disappointment. “Idiot,” he said under his breath. Basher only scratched his beard in confusion.
Hekesh approached the altar. He was followed by Iolus, who was grinning and clutching his hands together like a man holding a winning lottery ticket.
“The gods are good,” Iolus said, circling his prize.
Basher nudged Leticia. “Explain this to me. What is it with that sword?”
Coscoros cut her off before she could speak.
“It’s one of the swords of legend,” he said. “Aikon can only be used by a Savant sorcerer. If one of us tried to touch it—well, the usual.”
“We’d get blown up?” Basher said.
“More like melted.”
Basher watched Iolus and frowned. “How can a sorcerer wield something that big?”
“He doesn’t—at least not in the traditional sense. The blade is made from Tiberian steel. Even you couldn’t snap that thing.”
“Tiberian,” Basher said. “The only metal that can pierce my skin. You tell him to keep it away from me.”
As they spoke, Iolus slipped his hands beneath the sword and lifted it closer to Hekesh’s torch for inspection.
“…Tiberian steel, aside from being spectacularly rare, has other properties that make it special…”
Iolus lifted the sword as if it were something dangerous and unstable that could blow up at any minute. And yet the look on his face was one of pure satisfaction.
Leticia spoke in a grim voice. “This is going to change things.”
“Finish, Cos,” Basher said.
“I’m getting there.” Coscoros licked his lips, watching. “Sorcerers are adept at elemental manipulation—fire, water, earth, air, and metal. With enough effort, one trained in the art of levitation can move certain metals around, make them float, fly through the air, et cetera. Tiberian metal, the rarest of them all, is the easiest to command.”
“So,” Basher said, kneading his massive hands together. “What does that mean?”
It was Leticia who answered.
“Watch.”
Iolus lifted the sword above his head as if offering it in sacrifice to a god. He then lowered his arms, but the sword, Aikon, hung suspended in the air.
Iolus stepped back. Hekesh did the same.
Bobbing gently, Aikon turned and aimed its point at Hekesh.
“Iolus, please—wait…”
“It’s all right, old friend. I’m just amusing myself.”
Iolus lifted his right arm and made a few quick motions with his hand. Aikon moved around the room like a hummingbird, dipping and rising, spinning and slicing as if invisible hands were wielding it about.
Basher ducked as Aikon flashed toward him. It stopped inches from his face.
Leticia—throwing gusts of wind around as she did so—phased into a beetle the size of a dog and scuttled behind a boulder. Aikon sought her out and playfully tucked its blade beneath her, then lifted, tossing her against the wall. Her beetle legs twitched. Iolus couldn’t contain his laughter.
“Hooo hoo ha ha ha…!”
Coscoros stood frozen in place as Aikon floated over to him and brought its sharp point an inch away from his heart.
“See that?” Iolus said. “I could slice through you like a knife through butter, like an arrow through a silk sheet, like a pin through a butterfly’s wings!”
“In that case,” Coscoros said. “I hope your aim is as bad as your metaphors.”
Iolus howled. “Oh ho ho ho, good one!”
Aikon flashed out of sight. Coscoros breathed.
A gust of wind as Leticia phased back into human form. She walked over to Coscoros, rubbing her lower back. Her hair was in disarray.
“Bastard,” she said.
The sorcerer set his sights on Hekesh. Coscoros, Basher, and Leticia watched as Aikon floated toward the Sargonaut.
“He’ll tear him apart,” Coscoros said.
Hekesh spoke in a ragged voice as Aikon crept toward him.
“I helped you find your sword, Iolus. We had a deal.”
Iolus approached the man and the sword. When he was within reach of Aikon, he lifted his right hand and ran his fingers along the top edge of the blade. The sword never wavered but hovered in the air as steadily as if it were mounted in place.
“This will be an honor for you,” Iolus said, giving Hekesh a seriou
s look. “This is one of the swords of legend. How many can say they died by such a fine blade? Oh wait, I’ve killed thousands with this blade. Never mind!”
Hekesh’s lips trembled as he spoke. “Fine. Take my life if you will, but leave this village unharmed. You gain nothing through meaningless slaughter.”
Iolus’s eyebrows shot down in a look of rage. “You think I have time to slaughter this gods-forsaken hole you call a village? I have better things to do.”
Hekesh bit back a response, his rage visible.
Iolus stepped aside. Aikon spun like a helicopter’s rotors until it became a blur. Its whispery whup whup whup filled the chamber, throwing up dust. A tremor ran through the ground as the school, and all of its children, blew up in the distance. Aware of the slaughter, Hekesh closed his eyes and grit his teeth.
He screamed as Aikon tore him apart.
The carriage cut through the night clouds.
Leticia kept her gaze turned upward where she could use her Feral senses to monitor the sky, in case someone were to swoop down on them from above. Coscoros sat next to her, elbow hanging over the edge of the door. The wind cast strands of his and Leticia’s hair about, and made Basher’s beard twitch and shiver against his chest. Basher squatted in the back, too big for any of the seats. He kept his eyes on the yawning landscape. His eyes magnified the starlight, allowing him full view of all that crawled, walked, and sprinted below.
Iolus was the one most affected by the wind, and that was because he had chosen to drive the carriage despite his lack of experience. He stood behind the twin rows of levathons, reins in hand, arms stretched forward so he could lash the creatures onward. Aikon hung diagonally across his back. Every now and then, Iolus would howl into the wind. Dark streaks decorated his pale face. He hadn’t bothered to wipe away Hekesh’s blood.
“There,” Leticia said, pointing at a light blinking in the distance. Another carriage, signaling them to land.
Basher peered into the distance. “I see it, I see it,” he said. “You’re not the only one with eyes that can see in the dark.”
Iolus brought the carriage down through foggy darkness, toward a clearing in a forest of dead trees that resembled, from above, a hairy scab on the land. This was the Blighted Forest, and no man in his right mind would ever think to land here without—
—without me, Basher thought, smiling.
The Blighted Forest was like a second home to him. It was at times like these that he was glad he’d undergone the Dark Ritual to become a Berserker. He was about to meet his brothers. Hundreds of them.
Iolus tilted the steering rod and pulled on the reins. The levathons spread their black wings to catch the air and ease themselves down to the barren earth. The other carriage flew alongside them, full of soldiers. Basher grinned at them. They gave him baffled looks and then stared in shock at the clearing on which they were about to land.
The only plant life down here was betrayeus weed, also called bad grass, which could survive in the winter and kill a man twenty seconds after touching his bare skin. It swayed in the breeze like sea anemones ruffled by ocean currents. Basher was immune to its poison, of course. Actually, he thought bad grass tasted quite good when eaten.
“By the gods,” the driver of the other carriage said as they landed. “Why are we stopping here? Are you mad?”
“Shut up,” Iolus said. He stood on his seat, probably so he could be taller than everyone else. “Have you found the ranch?”
“Sir,” said a man dressed in a robe. He rose from the passenger seat and bowed his head. The robe’s heavy hood hid his face. When he lifted his right hand to salute, Basher saw that the man’s fingernails were long and curved. His skin was as white as paper and just as thin over a network of veins crisscrossing his bones.
A member of the Tenefraterni. A dark brother. Basher shivered beneath his armor.
The man continued in a snakelike hiss. “We have found a ranch to the north, protected by spells of magic that Ezzrax has never seen. Ezzrax was unable to penetrate further and see for certain what the ranch holds, but he sensed many life forms within.”
“Coordinates,” Iolus said. The soldiers in the other carriage stared at the smears of blood on the sorcerer’s face. Basher could sense their fear. He could sense their overwhelming desire to be out of this place.
But not Basher. He loved it here. He could feel the eyes of his brothers, watching them.
The low mage, Ezzrax, recited a string of numbers. Iolus nodded.
The other carriage wasted no time in taking off. Basher watched it creep upward until it disappeared into the night sky.
Iolus hopped out of the carriage and began the walk toward the center of the clearing. He was whistling, completely in his own world and oblivious to all else. Coscoros and Leticia remained seated. Basher smacked Coscoros in the shoulder.
“Pass me Smasher,” he said.
“Get it yourself,” Coscoros said. “I don’t see why I had to tag along. This place is cursed.”
Leticia looked out at the naked, black trees. “Don’t be such a child.”
“I don’t see you getting up.”
Basher interrupted. “With me here, you don’t have to worry. Once I make the call, they’ll listen to me and no one else.”
Coscoros sighed. “We don’t need help from monsters.”
Basher smacked his shoulder again, harder this time. Coscoros glared at him.
“Get a grip,” Basher said. “I don’t see chicken feathers on your wings.”
Coscoros took a deep breath, stood, and leaped into the air. His wings produced a steady beat as he flew in a circle above the carriage.
“Come on, then,” he said.
Leticia got up, put one foot on the top edge of the door, and propelled herself forward. Wind encircled her body as she phased into the form of a giant gray wasp with a stinger as long as a sword. A high-pitched buzzing filled the clearing as her wings blurred with movement.
“A grayjacket wasp,” Coscoros said. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises.”
Basher jumped. There was a loud thump as he landed next to the carriage.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They found Iolus standing in the center of the clearing, looking up at the stars through gashes in the clouds. Aikon danced around him, starlight flashing along its blade. Basher found himself wondering what vile thoughts spun inside the man’s head. Surely they were as sharp as Aikon—and just as cruel.
“Look at us,” Iolus said. “We’re nothing compared to those stars. Just little bits of cosmic powders being blown this way and that along the surface of a giant rock. But to be a god—one of the ancients—now that’s something…”
His voice trailed away into silence. The stars hung eternal and blind beyond the scattered clouds. Basher hated looking up at them. He wished the cloud cover was complete so he could go about his business in the dark.
But that wouldn’t happen. Iolus raised his right arm, hand balled into a fist. Then, closing his eyes, he let his fingers burst outward, exposing his palm to the sky.
Like sheets being pulled off a bed, the clouds spread outward until they were gone, leaving the entire dome of night sky exposed. A naked, glittering expanse—just like that. And it was immense, so much bigger than Basher had thought it could be, riddled with bright, twinkling stars, billions of them, so many that he felt dizzy just looking up. Their silvery light poured into the clearing, illuminating the betrayeus weed at their feet.
“It makes you feel like an insect,” Iolus said, baring his teeth, his voice rising into a growl. “The grandeur of it all—dimensions stacked atop one another like coins, entire galaxies rolling through infinity like marbles, and we are so small and meaningless that we could be said not to exist at all.” He closed his eyes as if pain had spiked in his head. “The gods are dead. Now there’s just me.”
Basher hesitated before stepping forward. He’d never seen another soldier behave this way. He looked up at Coscoros, who
hung flapping in the air, and Leticia, still in wasp form and making that dirty buzzing sound. Coscoros nodded for him to continue.
“Sir,” Basher said. “Should I make the call?”
“Yes.” Iolus tore his gaze away from the stars and peered at him. “Call your pets. Tell them that tonight they drink the blood of children.”
Chapter 58
They emerged from the black wall of trees at the northern edge of the clearing like sick dogs woken from a deep sleep. Skinny and hairless from a lack of nutrients; they had not fed properly in a long time. Godkin flesh was what they needed—the soft meat of women and children if they could find it.
Glowing red slits opened in the dark. The eyes of these demonic creatures. Basher had woken them up, and they were as angry as they were hungry. He could hear them growling low in their throats.
As his brothers walked into the moonlit clearing, Basher heard Coscoros’s breathing quicken. The Dark Acolyte had never seen an Elki up close. The creatures resembled a breed of dog common in the human world—those long-limbed ones, used in races—but in Basher’s opinion, Elki were far more beautiful. The alpha, bigger and meaner than the rest, came close enough for him to reach down and touch it. He ran his fingers along the boneflakes sticking out of its spine. Sharp as flint knives. The creature opened its mouth and yawned, exposing double rows of razor-sharp teeth.
It wagged its tail at Basher, widened its ruby-red eyes.
“Aroooooo,” the creature said.
Basher petted its hairless scalp. “Roooo,” he said. “Roooo-aroooo…”
The creature turned and howled at its pack.
“Roooooooo-arooo-aroooo…”
The night stillness broke as a chorus of excited yelps filled the clearing. There were easily a hundred and fifty Elki surrounding them now, all howling and yipping at once, their toothy heads turned up to the stars.
“My pets,” Basher said. “My brothers!”
He tipped his head back and howled with them.
Iolus stood behind the Berserker, watching the gathered Elki and laughing quietly to himself. One Elki came up to him and sniffed his boot. Iolus looked down at the creature.
Savant (The Luminether Series) Page 33