The horses stopped to drink at a stream. He took the chance to do the same, uncorking his water skin and taking a long drink. It was cool and tasted of copper. Much like his homeland. He smiled.
Salindra awoke as they stopped, looking over to him with sleepy eyes. “How much longer today?” she asked, her soft voice weak from sleep.
He looked up at the sun. It was dipping low in the sky. Around him, the grassy fields were slowly turning into forest. The trees were growing closer together. They provided more cover, but at the same time made it harder to check ahead. A slow-rising slope stretched before them, the darkening day casting long shadows along the still grassy ground.
Finally, he shook his head. “As far as possible. We have far to go,” he answered.
She nodded. He knew she was used to long days in the saddle. There would be many more of them before their traveling was done.
“How do you feel?” he asked, nodding to her ankles.
She looked down as if being reminded. It was a good sign if she was forgetting them. Shrugging her shoulders, she answered, “Better, I think.” She looked at him with her deep brown eyes. “Since you last healed me,” she told him.
The unspoken question hung loud in the air. He let it hang. “Good.” He looked up the hill before them. “Let us see what is beyond the horizon,” he urged.
She nodded.
They rode several more hours that night. The moon was high above them by the time they stopped. The horses were tied quickly, and they laid down for their rest.
As he drifted to sleep, Salindra asked, “Do we have a destination for our travel?”
“Yes,” he answered tiredly.
She snorted at his simple response. “Where?”
He looked over to her. In the pale light of the moon, he could see the Mage she had been. Powerful. Confident. He would tell her. “Rondalin,” he answered.
A long moment passed before she nodded.
Chapter Nineteen
Roelle sat silently in the large room, her head down, and her thoughts not on the task at hand. Words bounced from wall to wall, and the frail instructor in the front of the room tried to out yell the reverberations of his own deep voice. It was a soothing timbre, and her head was not the only one that struggled to stay erect.
“The war continued. We remained uninvolved, hesitant to act. The results, some one hundred years earlier, had not been as expected. Records indicate that the rest of the world was already set on destruction by the time we had chosen a course. Each nation battled the others. The Urmahne priests could not allow that to continue, and so finally, the Council argued that the ancient tradition must be following and they...”
Roelle had only been back a few days and already tired of the routine. She’d hoped that after what she’d been through, what she’d seen, she’d no longer require the daily lessons. It was not to be.
Even with the classes, she couldn’t get the memory of the frantic battle with the Deshmahne out of her head, nor could she stop the visions of the men she’d killed that came to her as she tried to sleep. The knowledge that she’d done what was necessary didn’t change her struggle with it.
She forced her attention back to the lecture, wondering how these lessons helped. She’d seen the Deshmahne raiders, knew their strength. The dark priests wouldn’t be stopped with talk.
The Elders she’d traveled with had been frustratingly silent about the Deshmahne since their return. The historian and the general both felt the Deshmahne had entered the city before them, infiltrating it to influence its people as so many in the south had been influenced and affected. Novan feared they sought something the Magi protected, though Roelle didn’t know what that might be. The Elders brushed it off, denying the possibility.
Roelle had gone to her uncle without success. Alriyn had not been accessible, too busy with the visiting delegates to have time for her, so Roelle had been sent back to her classes. She sighed with irritation and tried to focus on the lecture.
“The peace accorded by the early treaties was shattered when several kings and their generals were assassinated. Each nation felt the other had violated the treaty and planned an invasion. Further bloodshed was spared by the response of the Council.
“The Council announced the Uniter had acted independently, not on their orders, and proclaimed that he would be held accountable for his actions. Parties were sent for his capture, but unlike Josu d’Thealo before him, Brohmin Ulruuy evaded capture, and justice was denied. The nations...”
The Elder was interrupted by a question. “Elder, since Ulruuy was such a failure five hundred years ago, has the ancient practice been disregarded?”
Politt looked up from pacing behind the long table at the front of the room to focus on the young Mage asking the question. “That’s a question best left to the Council,” Politt answered, then stopped and looked at the questioner a moment longer before turning to the rest of the room.
Another Mage raised his hand, one Roelle knew well. Her friend Selton’s angled jaw and muscular frame belonged on a laborer, not a Mage, but Roelle knew he had a keen mind. “I’ve heard many speak of Brohmin Ulruuy as a failure, but he did accomplish his mission and reestablished a broken peace,” Selton commented slowly.
Politt’s long face nodded thoughtfully. Quiet moments passed before the answer. “That has been suggested before,” he began, his words slow. “Yet his mission was not only to stop the fighting and bloodshed. His mission was to restore peace to the land. His unorthodox actions almost destroyed the process. He certainly instilled a distrust of our role in the peace process. It is not possible to stop war through actions of war.”
The Elder almost glanced in her direction with the comment. She took no offense, knowing how the Magi Elders felt about the sudden interest among the apprentices to learn conventional defense. Peace was something instilled in the Magi at an early age—part Urmahne peace and part Magi tradition. The decision to work with the Denraen had started as a diversion, curiosity, but now that she’d seen the Deshmahne in person, seen how they attacked, she wondered if there was any way to stop them short of violence.
“If no one has anything more to add, we will stop for today. Tomorrow we discuss the ramifications of the war.”
A quiet restlessness crossed through the room at the prospect of finishing. Finally, a hand shot up from one of the younger students. “Elder, what of rumors Brohmin had a hand in the Slave Revolt?”
The Elder shook his head, a wry smile coming to his lips. “You should pay better attention to the dates in the lecture. The Slave Revolts were only fifty years ago. Brohmin was chosen Uniter hundreds of years before that.” He turned to the rest of the audience. “If there are no serious questions, you are all dismissed for the morning.”
Roelle walked from the lecture hall and paused. She hadn’t spoken to Selton since her return and hoped to catch her friend. Selton came through the doorway, his muscular frame nearly filling it, and blue eyes glittered with an intelligence masked by his slow speech.
“Your question kept us longer,” Roelle stated, feigning annoyance. She hadn’t seen Selton much since she’d returned to the city, and then when she finally decided to return to her studies, she’d intentionally come in late, not wanting to face the questions she knew she would be asked. But she needed to talk to her closest friend about what had happened.
Selton shrugged. “It was a fair question, I think.” He frowned at her, his wide brow furrowed. “I haven’t seen you much since you got back,” he started, concern in his voice. “The rumors say you were with Endric.”
Roelle wondered how much of the attack was known. She’d said nothing, had been cautioned to say nothing, yet Politt seemed to have known. “I was,” she admitted.
“Rumor says you brought down ten men.” There was no hint of judgment to his tone.
It might have been more than that, but she didn’t want to admit it, nodding instead. She saw their faces if she closed her eyes. She told herself there had
been no other option, that others would have died had she not acted. Was not that also the way of the Urmahne?
“All our practice, and I... I was forced to kill,” Roelle said.
“The others will want to know what you experienced. You’re the one who convinced us to begin learning.”
“Eventually,” Roelle said. She wasn’t ready to share with the others what she’d done. Not yet.
“Is it true?” Selton asked. “Were they Deshmahne?”
“Some were.”
Selton whistled softly. “What does Endric think this means?”
How much to share? She looked to her friend, saw the worry on his face and knew the answer. “The general thinks the Deshmahne seek access to the city.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. There was something else they worried about, but Endric hadn’t shared. “There was a historian who traveled with us. He thinks the Deshmahne are after something the Council protects.”
Selton considered the comment for a moment. “Historian? I suppose he’s traveled here?” he asked and didn’t wait for Roelle to nod. “We haven’t seen one here since the last was kicked out of the city. My uncle was displeased with him then.” Her friend paused. “Have you spoken to Alriyn yet?”
Roelle shook her head. “I haven’t been able to reach him since we returned.” The Second Eldest may be able to help her sort through what she had seen. Roelle didn’t know where else to turn. “Perhaps today,” she muttered, mostly to herself.
Selton eyed her. “And what are you doing now?” His body language and tilt of his head implied the question.
Roelle shook her head, knowing what her friend wanted, but there was no time to practice the sword today. “I really need to find Alriyn.” Perhaps her uncle could provide guidance about what she had seen. And done.
“After you do, there are others who would like to hear about what you experienced if you’re willing.”
Roelle sighed. She had avoided the others at first, struggling with settling back into the routine of the city, hiding even from her closest friends, but seeing Selton made it clear that she couldn’t remain hidden indefinitely. She had to rejoin the others, especially since they had followed her lead in seeking the Denraen to teach them.
“After I find Alriyn,” she promised.
Chapter Twenty
Jakob had been riding all day. Fatigue had all but robbed him of his focus, and sheer exhaustion nearly dropped him from the saddle. He had been pushing north for the better part of two days, stopping only for water. Hunger pangs had become one long ache, and the water could only sate it so much. At each stop, he checked the trunk, making sure the straps holding it to his saddle still held. Too much had been sacrificed to lose the trunk.
Once, he had tried the clasp, wondering what was inside, but the clasp was locked tightly, and the keyhole held the broken end of a piece of metal jammed into it. He had cut his finger trying to pull it out and gave up quickly. It was not his to open.
Stars crept out overhead as the darkness deepened. A small hill sloped in front of him, and near it was another copse of trees where he decided to camp. Cresting the small rise, Jakob noticed lights far down below him. Many lights scattered across the valley in all directions, flickering like the stars overhead but closer. He had used the star Entril to guide him north and north was through the city.
As much his tired, aching body was yearning to stop for the day, his stomach pulled him forward. The city meant food and perhaps a real bed. He had coin enough for both, thanking Tian and the pouch of gold he discovered hidden among the man’s crossbow bolts.
Something behind him made him turn—instinct or luck, he didn’t know. Three men moved quickly on horseback, dust kicked up and trailing them as the horses were spurred faster.
A sense of foreboding stole through him mixed with panic. Had raiders found him? Or worse—Deshmahne? He’d seen no sign of them over the last few days, but that didn’t mean they’d given up. With everything they’d done to attack so far, he didn’t expect them to abandon the chase easily.
His eyes blurred as he tried to gauge the distance to the city. The fatigue was overwhelming. He didn’t know if he could stay awake to make it, and didn’t know if his horse had enough left to carry him.
Nearing the copse of trees at the crest of the hill, his horse decided for him as he nearly tumbled from the saddle.
He came out of it awkwardly on his injured leg and quickly unsheathed his sword before untying the chest from his saddle.
He slipped his saddlebags off the horse as well and slung them over his shoulder. If his horse were to separate from him, he didn’t want to lose the remainder of his belongings. Stumbling, he fell onto a dead branch and rested long enough to become uncomfortable, his eyes fighting to stay open.
The rumble of hooves nearing brought him more awake, and he moved deeper among the trees, placing the trees between him and the riders.
Jakob fashioned the straps into a net to hold the trunk and attached it behind him on his belt. He twisted, and it moved slightly yet stayed attached. It was awkward, but he hoped it would work.
Craning his neck, he peered around the tree hiding him. The grove of trees was not very thick, and he easily saw what he feared he would. The riders had reached the hilltop and slowed, now following his tracks toward the trees.
Jakob shifted the sword in his hand. His arms were tired from riding, and his head and back still ached. Dread filled him. He could not survive against three raiders, let alone Deshmahne.
The men neared the tree line and dismounted. A stench of decay came with them. Each step they took closer increased the scent until it was nearly suffocating. The riders unsheathed swords, and the sound of the metal blades echoed among the trees. His dread increased and his heart thumped wildly in his chest.
One man was larger than the other two, his size immense, and there was something else about him more fearful than his size. Tattoos crossed his face and bald head, running down his neck onto his arms. The ink nearly covered all of his exposed skin.
From this man, he felt something that made the hairs on his arms stand up. He shook his head, trying to think straight. The slow pulsing had returned. There was something else about the man, something nearly visible, almost an energy radiating from him.
He jerked his head back out of view and squeezed the hilt of his sword. He had to protect the trunk.
He felt strongly about this. It was more than just about the men who’d died protecting it, though that was part of it. Endric’s concern for it had imprinted upon Jakob, and he felt the urgency the general had felt in seeing it safely to Avaneam. He owed something to the general for the time he had spent with him. Only he could protect the trunk and see it to Avaneam.
The pulsing in his head intensified, and Jakob tentatively opened himself to it. He had no control over it, but his awareness heightened with the vibrating, and he welcomed the feeling as it washed over him. His head throbbed with it, and the pulsing sent a slow tingling sensation through the rest of his body.
Carefully, he pushed his head out from behind the tree. The Deshmahne moved cautiously closer. The almost imagined energy radiating from the man was now more of a thin fog surrounding him.
Jakob recognized it; he had seen something similar. A similar fog had surrounded the High Priest. Did that mean he’d be as powerful as the High Priest?
Suddenly, the man brought his eyes around and locked on him. He made no motion as if to move. Simply stared. They knew where he was.
The Deshmahne started forward as one.
“You will come with us,” the large Deshmahne said. It was not shouted, but felt loud in Jakob’s ears. “The Highest summons.”
A chill ran down Jakob’s spine. The High Priest knew of him.
“No,” Jakob croaked, shaking his head, though the word fell from his mouth meekly.
The other two Deshmahne laughed, but the larger man did not. “This is not a request.” His words were felt a
s much as heard.
In spite of himself, Jakob felt pulled forward before he realized what he was doing and stopped.
“No.” This time his voice was stronger.
He raised his sword in front of him and pulled at the vibration within him as he remembered doing during the battle, and felt an excruciating pain in his skull. It was a tearing, as if a part of his mind ripped loose. The feeling rolled through his mind, through his body, an agony unlike anything he’d felt before. Throughout the pain, the pulsing in his head grew stronger, humming loudly in his ears, shooting through his body.
He screamed.
Jakob struggled to keep his eyes open as they watered with pain. He couldn’t see the Deshmahne, and turned his head side to side quickly, but felt nausea with the movement and stopped. His sword grew heavy, but he feared lowering it, else the Deshmahne would push forward and attack. Jakob smelled them as much as anything, a stench like rot coming from all directions, but could no longer see the men responsible.
He stepped forward, and as he did, his vision cleared slightly.
The large Deshmahne stood before him, almost near enough to touch. His sword was curved and he brought it up. “You will come.” His sword was a taunt as he carefully swung it.
Even through Jakob’s heightened awareness, the sword was a blur. He stepped to the side, his head clearing enough to see, and barely brought his sword up to block. He couldn’t win against this man.
In a panic, he pulled on the vibration within him, praying for the awareness he needed to stay alive, to escape. He’d need every advantage he could manage to survive.
His mind felt ripped asunder, as painful as the last.
Jakob staggered forward, nausea rolling through him.
With the nausea came the feeling of movement and he fell to his knees, his mind spinning. He leaned over to retch, but nothing came. Through it all, he struggled to keep his eyes open, his focus upon the Deshmahne. But he could do so no longer, and collapsed.
The Threat of Madness (The Lost Prophecy Book 1) Page 20