“They haven’t coordinated in numbers like this before?”
“They have, but that was over a thousand years ago.”
A thousand years. Even the Antrilii connected it to the ancient threat. “How is it that you thought to contain so many with so few Antrilii?” she asked. There seemed to be no way the number of Antrilii Jassan claimed had gone south would have been able to hunt and contain the ten thousand groeliin they had reported.
“We had no choice but to attempt to do what we could,” Jassan said.
“No choice?”
“The groeliin are the Antrilii’s burden. We willingly accept it, knowing that there will come a time when we no longer have to hunt and destroy groeliin, when we will finally have this burden lifted from us. All of us wait for this day. Until then, we hunt, and we willingly fight. We willingly make the sacrifice.”
Isandra swallowed. It sounded violent and brutal, but noble. How could the Antrilii feel that way about their task? How is it that they believed so much in what they needed to do?
Was it so different for the Magi?
It was a troubling thought, and it didn’t leave her as she waited.
The two Antrilii returned, and they nodded to Jassan.
They rode harder, pushing into the mountains.
“If there are this many groeliin remaining in the south, how is it that you don’t continue to roam and hunt?” she asked.
“Others have that task.”
“How many Antrilii remain after the attack in the south?”
“Enough for what you fear. The merahl aren’t alone in their hunting; we have others who hunt with us now.”
“The Magi?”
“Yes.”
“What of Roelle? You said you split off from the Magi in Thealon, but I could tell you didn’t share everything with me.”
His face clouded, and she wondered what had happened. Jassan had been unwilling to speak of what had happened, and she wondered if there was something to it that she should be worried about. Had word reached Alriyn?
“Jassan? What happened to Roelle?”
“I was fighting near the Tower and saw her fall. I did not see her afterward. I believe she dines with the gods.”
He turned away, no longer willing to meet her gaze.
Isandra stared straight ahead. She still hadn’t learned how many of the Magi survived. How many remained after the attack? And how many of the young Magi had they lost, never to return to Vasha again?
Chapter Seven
Roelle stared up at the sky, barely able to believe she was alive. The last thing she remembered was fighting groeliin, one after another, each of the creatures more powerful than any she had ever faced before. She remembered slipping, falling, a dozen cuts slicing through her flesh, leaving her with pain that burned through her, pain that made her believe she would not survive.
Then again, when she’d seen the onslaught of groeliin, she realized that she hadn’t come to Thealon to survive.
Somehow, someway, she had been pulled free. But how? What happened, and how had she managed to survive? What magic had been worked—what power of the gods had saved her?
“You live. The gods truly have smiled upon you,” Nahrsin said. He stood close to her, his grizzled face barely two hands away from hers. The paint that he’d spread over his face—streaks of orange and black that were striped in ways to make him resemble the merahl he hunted with—had smeared free during the fight. Blood covered his brow, and she saw fresh stitches along his cheekbone. Dried blood was caked to them.
“How? I mean… How?”
Nahrsin smiled. With the remaining paint on his face and the blood that was caked along his cheeks, it appeared horrific. “The gods protected you.”
Roelle squeezed her eyes closed. The gods. Could they have protected her? The gods had sent her south, had sent her to face the groeliin, and had thrown her against creatures viler than anything she could ever have imagined when she had agreed to this mission. The journey had changed her, though she wondered if perhaps that wasn’t the intent. Much of what had happened seemed to have played out according to Endric’s plan.
Had the old general known what she was going to encounter?
She believed that he did, just as she believed that he had intended her to join with the Antrilii, and to use her Magi abilities to face the groeliin.
Had he known about the Great Forest?
Without that, even the Magi wouldn’t have been enough to assist the Antrilii with stopping the groeliin. Without that magical barrier—some residual effect of the gods—she doubted that there would have been any way for them to survive. The ten thousand groeliin had been almost more than they could face.”
“Did we do it?” she asked.
“We did it. The groeliin have been stopped. Those that remain have scattered, heading north.”
“North? We need to—”
“I have sent bands of warriors to take care of it.”
Roelle took a deep breath. She trusted the Antrilii to manage what needed to be done, and to suppress the remaining groeliin. The Antrilii had spent centuries facing the groeliin, and were ruthless when it came to the creatures. Roelle wondered if that was what would have happened to the Magi had they not laid down their swords. What if the Founders had never settled in Vasha? Would they have turned into something like the Antrilii?
“Where am I?” she asked.
She looked around and realized that it was a simple building. Wooden walls were not decorated, though at some point in the past, someone had thrown a coat of paint on them, attempting to provide more warmth than the wood otherwise offered. She rested on a fairly comfortable bed—though not nearly as comfortable as her own in Vasha would have been. It had been months since she had slept in a bed. Months since she had known the comfort of her home, and months since she had known a sense of safety.
Was she safe now?
“We are not far outside of Thealon,” Nahrsin said. “There is a village a short ride from the city, a place that the priests suggested we take you.”
“The priests?”
“The Urmahne priests recognized what we were trying to do. They suggested we bring the survivors to the village. No others live here.”
“Why would no others live here—”
She stopped herself, realizing the answer even as she asked. With the way the groeliin had pressed down, racing from the north, other villages would have been destroyed. It shouldn’t surprise her that a village north of Thealon had been impacted.
“How many?”
“Rest, Roelle. We can talk about it later—”
“How many?” she pressed.
Nahrsin let out a deep sigh. He stood, clasping his hands behind his back, and met her gaze. “You lost nearly half of your remaining Magi warriors.”
Nearly half. Of the one hundred that had come north with her, only about eighty had survived to make it to Thealon. If half of them survived…
So many had been lost.
“How many Antrilii?”
“You do not need to mourn the Antrilii.”
“I’ll mourn your men the same as I suspect you will mourn the loss of mine,” Roelle said.
Nahrsin dipped his head. “Of course. I would expect nothing less from you.” He turned away, and his head shook. It took a moment for her to realize that he was sobbing.
How many men had he lost? There had been nearly three hundred Antrilii who had come south with him, and they had not lost nearly as many as the Magi had during their earlier battles. Between the merahl’s protection and the Antrilii’s superior sword skill, they had been as safe as the Antrilii could be while facing such horrible odds.
“I lost all but fifty of my warriors.”
Fifty. The number set in, leaving her with a nauseated feeling that worked through the pit of her stomach. One sixth of the Antrilii who had come south had been lost. A little more than half of the Magi who had ventured from Vasha had been lost.
So many.
>
“What if the groeliin return?”
Nahrsin turned back to her. “They should not.”
“How do you know? How can we be certain?”
“There is no certainty,” Nahrsin said. “But for them to have sent so many to the south, they would have needed to commit an entire breeding to this mission.”
“A breeding?”
“The groeliin don’t breed regularly. They do so in cycles, once every dozen or so years. It would have taken an entire breeding for them to build up these numbers. It makes sense, especially as we have not faced significant groeliin attacks over the last decade.”
If that were the case, the groeliin—or whoever controlled them—had been planning this attack for a long time. They knew that some of the groeliin had powerful abilities, some that Nahrsin suspected rivaled those of the Magi. Powers that Roelle began to suspect the Antrilii possessed as well.
“Are your fifty remaining Antrilii enough to cleanse the north?”
Nahrsin flashed a half smile. “What an interesting choice of words.”
Roelle started to sit up, but realized that pain in her back and her sides made doing so difficult. She didn’t know how badly she was injured, but she’d likely sustained significant injuries that had required stitching, much like what Nahrsin had required. How scarred would she be?
It was something the Denraen would appreciate. Those soldiers appreciated scars—and practically asked for them. Maybe Endric would take her more seriously if she appeared before him with a dozen new injuries all freshly healed.
“Why is that an interesting choice of words?”
Nahrsin shrugged. “Only that the Antrilii refer to the removal of the groeliin threat as a cleansing. We’ve never managed to achieve a complete cleansing, and have never managed to fully eradicate the groeliin, but one day we will.”
“If we’ve killed nearly ten thousand, I think we’ve made a dent in their numbers.”
“If only it were so. Ten thousand groeliin can be replaced with a single breeding. It will take years for them to regain the same strength—especially if they must wait for another breeding cycle—but they will return.”
“Why not confront them in their breeding grounds?”
“We have tried, but doing so has proven more difficult than anything else that we have attempted with them. Most of the time, we must be content with simply managing to contain them. As long as the rest of your lands don’t encounter the groeliin, that will be enough.”
“This time, they weren’t able to be contained,” Roelle said. She attempted to sit up again, but her back screamed with the effort. She cocked her eye at Nahrsin. “Can you help me sit?”
“I’m sorry, Roelle. Your injuries were extensive, and beyond my field training.”
“What does that mean? Am I going to die?”
She had thought that surviving meant that she had gotten through the worst of the injuries, but perhaps that wasn’t the case. Now that she thought about it, now that she focused on the pain that raged through her, she recognized that where she’d been cut, where she’d been attacked, remained throbbing, leaving her with a pulsating sort of discomfort and pain.
Could she even move her legs?
When she tried to, she realized that yes, she could. Her arms moved as well.
What then?
“The groeliin have been known to poison their weapons. It makes attacks even more dangerous when they do. Often, a few injuries can be healed. The Antrilii have much experience in treating these injuries. There are various salves and liniments that can be applied, but when the wounds are too extensive, even those attempts will fail.”
“What are you saying, Nahrsin?”
“You have been severely injured, Roelle. Nearly a dozen wounds required stitching, but there were countless others that did not. It was a wonder that you remained standing as long as you did. I suspect the gods watched over you—and provided you strength.”
“I won’t recover?”
“You might,” he started. “But if the poison settles into your veins, it’s possible that it will continue to weaken you, draining you of strength—and your abilities.”
Roelle frowned. It would be bad enough to slowly fade away, to feel a gradual loss of her strength before finally dying, but it would be even more terrifying if she lost her Mage abilities along with it.
“How long will I have?”
“I don’t know.”
Roelle closed her eyes. She thought about what she would normally do for healing. Under other circumstances, there were many in Vasha who specialized in various healing arts, Magi with incredible skill, but she was near Thealon. Reaching Vasha would take days—possibly weeks—and she might not have long enough to do that.
“Were we in the Antrilii lands, there would be other healers I could take you to. There are many with abilities to counter the groeliin poisons.”
It was an admission that the Antrilii possessed abilities. They had to, especially if they could see the groeliin. Now that Roelle knew they descended from the same people—that they were essentially related, however remotely, she had to believe that the Antrilii possessed something akin to the Magi abilities. That would explain their superior swordsmanship, skill that rivaled anything Roelle had ever seen.
Except for Jakob Nialsen.
In a flash, a memory of seeing him facing the groeliin returned to her. He had been amazing, gifted with skill and speed that was unlike anything she had ever witnessed. How was it that the boy she had known, the young man she had left Chrysia with, had become such a fearsome fighter?
There were hints of his skill when they had been on the road together. His rapid improvement while facing Endric had been testament to that. He had demonstrated skill that had rivaled hers toward the end, and she assumed that her Magi gifts had granted her some natural tendencies toward swordsmanship.
Had he been a Mage?
It was not completely unheard of for men or women to be born with the Mage gift, even those outside of the city. Such a thing had happened, though it was rare. Most Mageborn were born to Magi parents. Others came from direct descendants, and determining what gifts they might possess was less difficult.
“Mage?” When she didn’t answer, Nahrsin went on. “Roelle?”
She shook her head. “I was thinking about a young man I once knew.”
“I would not have figured you for the type to lament over a lost love,” Nahrsin said.
Roelle shrugged. “Perhaps not love, but…” There had been some sort of attraction, hadn’t there? She had thought of Jakob often after leaving him, but then had become so caught up in everything else she had been doing, and the training with the Denraen, and Endric’s suggestion that she travel north, that she search out the Antrilii, that she had forgotten about him.
Seeing him—and seeing him still alive—had brought some of those feelings back to her. They were feelings that surprised her. Roelle had always been practical, but there was a part of her that felt strangely drawn to him.
“He was the young man we encountered outside of the forest and rode the rest of the way toward Thealon with.”
Nahrsin nodded slowly. “A skilled swordsman. Anyone who travels with the Hunter would have to be.”
“The Hunter?”
“The man he traveled with. The Antrilii know him as the Hunter.”
“He can see the groeliin.”
Nahrsin nodded.
“Is he Antrilii?” Nahrsin shook his head. “Is he one of the Magi?” That would be the only other possibility, though she thought she would have heard had there been a Mage who roamed the countryside and still fought with the sword. Wouldn’t Endric have provided that information to her?
“He is neither. He was gifted by the gods, and he uses that gift on their behalf.”
Roelle wondered what sort of gift the gods would have given a man to allow him to see the groeliin. Not only that, but he also had demonstrated incredible skill with the sword.
�
��You know what happened to them?”
“The Hunter escaped. He came through two days ago, traveling west. He had another mission.”
Mission? That sounded formal for a man who served the gods. They gave him assignments? And here the Magi had long claimed that they had a connection to the gods. If that man is dead, if he fought on their behalf, perhaps he had a greater right to claim such a connection than anyone else.
“What of Jakob?”
“The damahne?” Nahrsin asked.
Roelle looked at him quizzically. “The damahne?”
Nahrsin nodded. “I had not expected to see one, and one so young.”
“What are you talking about?” Roelle asked.
“The man you know as Jakob. He is what the Antrilii refer to as damahne. He is one of the gods.”
Chapter Eight
Jakob awoke from his vision. What had he just experienced?
He had seen a vision of Niall. His great-father. He was the man who first had been given the sword Neamiin and who the Conclave had trained. He had seen him fighting, and had felt him willing to harm another. Niall had fought not Deshmahne, dark priests who summoned energy and magic that they should not possess, and not groeliin, creatures out of a nightmare that should never have existed, but other men.
Was that what he was meant to learn?
Was that what he was intended to become? Would he somehow have to face others, those who wanted only to protect those they cared about, much like Jakob wanted only to protect Anda.
That wasn’t the life Jakob wanted, and it was not the one he expected to have.
With this vision, there had been a feeling—fleeting, and only when he had remained aware of himself—of something else. Jakob had the vaguest sense of what it was, like a memory he couldn’t chase.
Anda stood at his shoulder and watched him, her full lips pressed together, a question evident in her strange and exotic eyes. She blinked, and the lids swept to the sides in the strange way that they did. “What is it, Jakob Nialsen?”
He forced a smile. She didn’t need to know what he had seen. She likely already had an opinion of what men did to each other. She had experienced the Deshmahne attack. To the daneamiin, were the Deshmahne any different from other men?
Twist of the Fibers (The Lost Prophecy Book 4) Page 6