Circle In The Deep (The Outcast Royal Book 1)

by Aaron D. Schneider

  Why was his face so hard to picture? She remembered it well but at first, the mental image seemed like a weight she didn’t have the energy to lift. Despite this, the memory of the caravan master wracked with care as he looked heavenward with a dusting of moonlight on his dark beard drew her in. She saw the sweep of his broad shoulders and wondered if perhaps there would have been room for her to rest her head there. Could those heavy arms have held her even when she thrashed with nightmares? But it was too late now.

  She put the thoughts aside and hoped that Vahrem and his caravan were far from Jehadim.

  “Let’s do this,” Ax-Wed said with a nod and let the first incantation take shape in her mind.

  “You’ve doomed us all,” Prince Tarkhind screamed as he lurched toward Alborz.

  Guuhal stepped forward and extended his hand to block his path.

  “My prince,” the Hazarbed said softly. “You are not yourself.”

  Tarkhind looked into his face and his mouth twisted with a snarl.

  “You are part of this!” the young ruler shrieked. “You and these traitors have killed us all!”

  Alborz stepped to Guuhal’s shoulder with Vahrem a pace behind him.

  “What is he talking about?” the Argbed asked and felt the confusion and tension spread through his men like the crackles of lightning in the sky above.

  “Didn’t he tell you?” Tarkhind shouted over the guard commander’s unmoving shoulder. “Didn’t he explain why we had to offer sacrifices?”

  “Sacrifices?” Alborz repeated as an anxious murmur rippled through the assembly of guards. He didn’t like the energy in the air that infused the expressions of the men when they looked at each other. Emotions were running high and things could get out of hand in short order.

  “What sacrifices?” Vahrem demanded as he pushed closer to the prince and even shouldered past Guuhal to reach him. “Those you took? What did you do to them?”

  Prince Tarkhind’s fury crumpled before the burly merchant’s accusing glare. He looked into eyes ready to ignite with a terrible and righteous wrath and he recoiled. Reflexively, he looked from face to face and found no comfort or support.

  “I…I did what was necessary,” he said slowly and tried to draw himself up and away from those who should have knelt before him. “That is the burden of leadership, of ruling.”

  “That’s not good enough!” the caravan master snapped and advanced a step, his fingers curled into thick claws that seemed eager to rend royal flesh. “What happened to those you took?”

  The royal retreated a step but the guards who had brought him to this treasonous assembly prevented him from retreating further. He turned and realized that those before him—not only Alborz, Guuhal, and Vahrem but every man on the causeway—had stepped closer and now pressed in with hard faces and narrowed eyes.

  “Don’t any of you understand?” he shouted but his voice cracked as he started to fold into himself. “I did it to save this city!”

  Vahrem lunged forward, seized the slight royal by the front of his dressing gown, and began to haul him toward the edge of the causeway.

  “You start making sense or you won’t have to worry about Jehadim!” the caravan master warned.

  “Vahrem!” Alborz shouted but stopped short of rushing forward when the merchant heaved Tarkhind onto the lip of the wall. “Don’t, please. We need him to face trial.”

  “You can have him when I’m done, assuming there’s anything left,” he responded shortly and his gaze remained fixed on Tarkhind’s bloodless face. “Now speak!”

  The prince didn’t look at the dark water rushing behind him but instead, his eyes turned upward to stare at the fury-riven skies.

  “They won’t believe me,” he whined in a small and brittle voice. “They won’t understand.”

  Vahrem’s brow knotted as the royal continued to stare skyward until another peal of thunder broke the spell. He shook him roughly and one of his slippered feet scuffed at the edge of the wall and his heel slid over empty air.

  “No more lies and no more conspiracies,” he rumbled with a voice that matched the tumult in the heavens. “What did you do?”

  Tarkhind’s eyes seemed to go out of focus for a moment and he thought the prince might have swooned but with a shudder, the young man came back to himself. Sharp, hard eyes glared at the merchant before the prince threw his head back and laughed.

  “Don’t you remember?” he sneered. “It all started with Hasriim the Great.”

  He scowled but his hold upon Tarkhind remained firm.

  “My father, the Sentinel, stood watch as Hasriim the Great neutered and shackled Jehadim,” Tarkhind explained bitterly. “After all, where are our lancer cohorts and why do our guards bear clubs and staves instead of spears and blades? It’s all because of Hasriim’s boot on our neck but unlike my father, I wasn’t content to let this indignity stand. I knew that once the broken old fool was gone, I would do everything in my power to see Jehadim free and strong enough to deny the tyrant and anything he brought against us.”

  Several of the men on the causeway shuffled uncomfortably but something akin to defiant pride flared in the eyes of a few of them. It seemed the prince wasn’t the only one who chafed under the bonds of the Hasriiman Dictates.

  “Yet how could I do this with my father allowing Hasriim to cut our balls off? I turned to old stories of what had once stood where Jehadim is now and when secrecy was all but assured, I had the lower reaches of the Citadel excavated in search of the ancient means to unleash ruin not seen since the days of the Thulian Empire. It proceeded slowly at first but in time, we saw the fruit of our labors when we found tunnels that led deep into the earth, remnants of the mighty people who once built their fortresses to house weapons of terrible power. We continued to dig, sure that salvation was beneath the next layer. Then, we found Him.”

  The skies bellowed and Tarkhind winced as though struck.

  “He was a monster, a demon or perhaps even some ancient god who had waited, restless and unslumbering in the dark. He told me that he indeed possessed the weapon I desired but he required sacrifices before he would part with it. I offered the workers who had unearthed the depths, who were all criminals and slaves anyway, but it soon became clear that his appetites were larger than that. I enlisted Guuhal to find someone to acquire more people—those who wouldn’t be missed like the workers—but as more were given, it became clear that he would never be satisfied and I tried to refuse him. He threatened to turn the very weapon I’d sought upon Jehadim! What choice did I have?”

  All stood in horrified silence, some of them unable to meet the prince’s wild stare.

  “And that is what has become of your sell-sword and every other soul sent into circles carved deep in the earth,” the prince said with a defiant glare at Vahrem. “Kill me if you want, but you’ll merely make me a martyr for Jehadim exactly like her.”

  The merchant’s arm trembled with rage and for a moment, no one on the causeway dared to move. Then, with a howl like a wounded beast, his whole body flexed in a violent twist and the royal was thrown back toward the center of the causeway. The young ruler fell at Guuhal’s feet and shook his head as though surprised to still be breathing air.

  With a defeated sob, the caravan master sank to his knees and rested his elbows on the low wall at the edge of the causeway.

  “Nothing,” he whispered. “She’s been gone all this time.”

  Alborz appeared at his back and placed strong hands on the bowed shoulders.

  “I’m sorry, Vahrem,” the Argbed said, his throat tight but his voice gentle.

  “Nothing!” Vahrem roared to the sky, which answered with its titanic echo. “All of it! Nothing!”

  Alborz’s voice betrayed him when his mouth opened to speak. He shook his head, remained silent, and simply stood with one hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “Bind the prince,” Guuhal instructed the closest guards. “See that he comes to no harm.”

  Still o
n the ground, Tarkhind cackled like a reeling drunk.

  “Oh, it’s too late for that!” He giggled. “None of us will live long enough to escape this city. He’ll make sure of that.”

  Nervous glances were exchanged among the assembly of guards until the Hazarbed struck his staff on the stone and launched another parade-ground address.

  “Royal guards of Jehadim, to your duties!” he bellowed and with a start, the men hurried to obey.

  They’d dragged the prince to his feet when the heavens resounded with a tremendous crash and a fury unlike anything they had witnessed before. Every gaze rose to the tumult in the celestial vault. As a result, every face was etched with a searing glare as a bolt launched from on high to stab through the heart of the Citadel like the burning lance of God.

  “It’s coming!” Tarkhind screamed, his cry barely audible through the tremendous sound of ancient fortifications splintering apart. “I told you!”

  Lost in all the roar was the faintest impression of great wings beating.

  “Yes!” Atlacothix roared. “Excellent!”

  Ax-Wed screamed as the power coursed in and around and through her flesh. It threatened to consume her as her whole body went rigid and sparks spat from her eyes and fingertips.

  “Quickly!” the fiend called over the crackling roar that filled the chamber. “The Cherubash is coming. Strike before it destroys us all.”

  Three potent syllables were all she needed to annunciate—hal’kah’qua. They would send the gathered sorcerous energy surging upward to reduce Jehadim to a lifeless crater. Three small sounds would be all it took and she and Zoria would be free of this nightmarish place forever.

  “Ax-Wed!” the girl cried, her voice almost lost in the thrum of the energy that threatened to tear the Thulian apart. “Please! Please don’t!”

  “Do it now! It’s almost here.”

  Every muscle in her body screamed in protest as Ax-Wed lifted her head and opened her mouth to scream.

  “Qua’kah’hal!”

  The pain that surged through her was beyond screams, beyond bodily spasms, and beyond any understanding. She felt the very fibers of her body and soul come unspooled as arcs of power slammed into her from impossible distances.

  “You fool! You—”

  Sorcerous power, not simply heat or light but raw, unnatural fury, launched out from the Thulian’s outstretched hands and ripped through everything it touched in a cascade of ruin. Stone erupted like tufts of chaff as tendrils of snapping, undulating light burrowed and chewed through anything in their erratic path.

  Her eyelids drawn painfully wide in the glare of the sorcerous onslaught, she watched as arcs and rays of the unleashed power buried themselves in Atlacothix’s flesh to release noxious clouds of black vapor before they punched through to the other side.

  Traitor! the terrible voice howled inside her head but it was a distant cry compared to the storm that raged in her.

  Wave after wave poured through her to flense stone in great molten curls or open fresh ichor-leaking wounds in the demon’s flesh until, with a final exultant cry, she threw her hands upward and a final blast struck the fractured Eye that hung overhead. For an instant, the black disk held and drank in the earth-shattering power, but fissures like torn veins soon appeared amidst the jagged expanse. There was a crack like the spine of the world breaking and the blasphemous icon sundered to rain burning shards of stone onto the fiend and cause the fetid pool to boil.

  Steam and curls of smoke rolled off her body as Ax-Wed collapsed onto her hands and knees. In a single heave, she tore her helm from her head and knelt upon the floor, in too much pain to do anything but force one breath in and one breath out.

  All around her, the tortured stones groaned as they ground against one another, shifted, slipped, and prepared for the inexorable collapse. She knew that her life could be measured in seconds.

  Slowly, she turned and beheld the ruined form of Atlacothix where it lay spent and flaccid in the bubbling pool. Its fanged maw gaped wide and a dribble of ichor seeped steadily into the liquid. She stared at the fallen hulk and a smile stole across her lacerated lips until the perforated body uttered a quavering rasp and quivered slightly.

  “When you reach the darkest pits of the Kingdom,” Atlacothix wheezed as its remaining eye turned toward her. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Then, like a punctured wineskin, the Tzitohn deflated in a rush of putrid foulness too dark and turgid to be blood. An oppressiveness so subliminal it seemed natural left the chamber and for the first time since being thrown into the dark beneath Jehadim, Ax-Wed drew in an untroubled breath.

  “Zoria?” she called in a hoarse voice, rose stiffly to her feet, and beat the pain back with a fatalist’s final elation. It was almost over.

  A small sound behind her made her turn and she saw Zoria curled in a ball on the floor, as white as a sheet but otherwise seemingly unharmed. Every movement a little easier than the last but all of them exquisitely painful, the Thulian shuffled closer to the girl and with a long groan, sank beside her.

  “Come here, girl.” She sighed, her arms outstretched. “I’ve got you.”

  Zoria let herself be gathered into Ax-Wed’s arms as the first chunks of stone broke free from the ceiling and splashed into the pool.

  “You didn’t destroy the city,” she whispered as she pressed herself against her armored chest.

  “No, I didn’t,” she agreed softly and tugged one gauntlet off to run scarred fingers through the girl’s silken hair.

  “But that means we’ll die down here.” The words were untouched by fear but resonant with sadness.

  “Sooner rather than later, I’m afraid,” Ax-Wed said and did her best to speak around the lump forming in her throat. A larger chunk of stone split from the ceiling and struck the floor a few paces from them, but she continued to stroke Zoira’s hair. There was nowhere to go and nothing else to do.

  “I don’t want to die,” the girl stated almost matter of factly and a single tear traced along the scar on her face.

  “Me neither,” she agreed with a swallow that gave a soft click in her throat.

  Zoria looked up and smiled at her, the expression sad but sincere. “But I’m glad I’m with you,” she said before she rested her head again, still smiling.

  The walls groaned around them and began to buckle slowly.

  “Thank you,” Ax-Wed said with a sniff. “I’m glad I’m with you too.”

  Neither of them bothered to look up at a deep and ominous crack overhead.

  “I suppose this is the end then.” The girl sighed.

  The pulse of a heavy wing beat between the grinding cracks of stone almost seemed like a dream and both felt a thrill when a voice, deeper and purer than Atlacothix could imagine, whispered at the edge of their awareness.

  Not quite yet.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “It’s over! There’s no escape.”

  Prince Tarkhind’s dire proclamations rang unchallenged as those on the causeway scrambled to retreat from the collapsing Citadel. Great sections of the structure twisted and fell free from the bones of the venerable fortress and plunged in a spray of debris and a cloud of dust.

  Vahrem and Alborz ran side by side and ducked flying chunks of masonry as they raced to clear the causeway which had already begun to buckle behind them. The wagon, its team of donkeys, and the rear guards had already been claimed and when the caravan master stole a glance over his shoulder, he saw that Hazarbed Guuhal raced barely ahead of the crumbling stones with the mad prince thrown over one shoulder.

  In that moment and by the Shepherd’s grace, he forgave the guard commander before he focused on his own escape.

  He and Alborz reached the street seconds before a cloud of dust from the imploding building enveloped them and the world became a choking phantasm of moonlight on crushed stone.

  Staggering and colliding with others in this bleary netherworld, the merchant was soon separated from his friend and he
staggered forward, blinking like an owl in daylight. For a time, there was nothing but one foot moving in front of the other and each particle-choked breath rasped through his raw throat.

  “Nothing,” Vahrem muttered as he lurched past a half-glimpsed figure in the dark miasma. “All for nothing.”

  Songs and poems, the lifeblood of his faith, rose to his mind to remind him to trust the Shepherd but the ache in his heart would not be soothed.

  “Nothing,” he repeated after he stumbled over a fractured bit of masonry. “All for—”

  But a wool be knit, so the Shepherd works his will.

  The words rose in his mind but they seemed to not be in his voice.

  So take heart, dear Flock, and in your aching be still.

  “Be still.” He breathed and coughed as dust coated his throat. “Be…uh, be still.”

  Slowly, his feet dragged to a stop and his hands rose to cradle his head.

  “Shepherd, keep me,” he whispered, so lost in prayer that he remained ignorant of those who staggered past him like ghosts in the muffling cloud. “I am lost and afraid, and I doubt. Forgive me. Keep me.”

  With his eyes pinched shut and his hands over his face, Vahrem was taken completely unawares when something butted up against him. In surprise, his hand clamped down on a narrow shoulder, the slight support exactly what he needed to keep his balance. He tried to dislodge clinging clumps of dust while he squinted to inspect the small figure under his hand.

  “Child, are you lost?” Vahrem managed to croak before a grasp like iron seized his wrist.

  “Let go of her!” A leonine roar was followed by a sharp twist and he was driven back until his foot turned on some debris. He had an impression of a tall figure coming towards him before he toppled and landed with a winded grunt.