Kyel reacted, mending the torn tissues, repairing damaged membranes, shoring up the rent walls of organs. Beneath his fingers, Sareen’s body shuddered. Her heart spasmed, lurching back to life. Blood, long stalled, rushed to fill waiting ventricles, coursing through long-emptied veins.
With a gasp, Sareen’s lungs filled with their first breath of air since death.
Kyel looked up, startled, his eyes wide, mouth hanging aghast. His stare met Naia’s, equally alarmed, equally frightened. Through his hands, he felt the body draw another, shuddering breath.
“What do we do now?” Kyel whispered, feeling a sharp pang of excitement mingled with a terrible sense of foreboding.
Naia looked down at Sareen’s face, her eyes set in grim determination.
“Now, we wait. The rest is up to Xerys.”
Chapter Nineteen
Transgressions
Qul, The Black Lands
DARIEN FLINCHED AT THE SOUND of a distant, startled scream. An icy sweat broke out all over his body, prickling his flesh. He gazed out into the roving fog, eyes scouring the shadows. A shiver traced down his spine, caressing the small of his back like the lightest brush of fingertips. He ran forward two brisk strides then stopped.
He brought his hand up and whistled, a piercing sound that cleaved right through the mist.
Then he waited, the speed of his thoughts far outpacing the speed of his pulse. He stared with dread into the murky haze, disoriented, unsure which direction he was even facing. After moments, he heard a swift, pattering sound. A moving shadow burst through the blanket of fog, careening toward him and hurling into his legs, almost knocking him over. The demon-dog yipped as it pressed its muzzle into Darien’s hand, tail thrumming against his thigh. A slobbering wet tongue slicked the palm of his hand. The smell of the beast was like mold and old decay.
“Find Meiran,” he commanded the thing.
He didn’t expect the beast to understand or obey. It was more an act of desperation than anything else. But the thanacryst shot immediately away, sprinting off again into the tumbling mist. Then it stopped, glancing back toward him, green eyes beckoning from out of the darkness. Darien followed after as the creature ranged forward, nose to the earth, intent on its purpose. It covered the dark ground in a broad searching pattern. Every so often it would turn and sprint back to Darien’s side then turn and bound away.
This continued for minutes. Then, suddenly, the demon-hound abruptly froze in its tracks. Its tail went stiff, swept back straight as a stick, one forepaw lifted slightly off the ground. Then it darted off across the plain, following a straight trajectory across the rugged terrain.
Darien lost sight of the beast quickly in the fog. He did his best to run after it, hoping the hound didn’t veer very much from its course. He eventually slowed to a walk and then finally stopped. There was no sign of the creature. He almost turned back. But then a distant baying sound urged him forward.
He jogged toward the noise. He found the thanacryst by following the sound of its guttural growls. The beast appeared to be worrying at something on the ground, making frantic, slobbering noises. Darien drew up, alarmed by the sight of the hound gnawing on a man’s outstretched arm.
“Theanoch!” Darien gasped, using his fists to batter the creature away.
The demon-dog yelped and scampered off before turning back to him with a snarl, feet planted wide in the dirt. Its teeth barred, the beast lowered its head and glared at Darien with menacing eyes.
Darien ignored the thing, throwing himself down beside where Quin lay face-down in the dirt. Blood welled from puncture marks all along his arm and from a wound in the back of his head. Darien closed his eyes and drew quickly on the magic field, probing the man’s condition. Satisfied that he had a good sense of his injuries, he turned Quin over, cradling him in his arms.
Darien squeezed his eyes tightly shut and set his mind about the task of repairing the damage Quin had sustained. He worked quickly, almost automatically. The magic field was by now like a treasured old friend, familiar and comfortable. Darien heard a low groan as Quin’s body flinched. The darkmage relaxed, fully surrendering to the peaceful bliss of healing sleep. Darien waited until the sound of Quin’s breathing was even and deep before squirming out from underneath him. He lay the sleeping form down gently in the dirt, slowly backing away.
Only then did he notice that the thanacryst had disappeared into the night.
Darien glanced around, frowning, wondering where the demon-dog had disappeared to. He hadn’t liked the way the thing had growled at him. At the very least, it was enough to give him pause.
The fog was starting to break up. The sky had returned to its usual, sinister cloudscape. Thunder echoed as lightning forked in the distance. Drops of rain started falling erratically to the dirt. Darien paced away, whistling. But the beast did not return. His loathsome companion had abandoned him, it seemed.
And Meiran was gone, as well.
Another flicker of lightning sliced across the sky. Darien frowned, wrestling with indecision. He couldn’t leave Quin lying prone in the dirt with a storm breaking over him. The slight depression where he lay could easily flood if enough water drained off the hillside.
But there was no trace of Meiran. She, too, could be lying injured in the storm.
Darien turned and glanced back toward the village. The town of Qul lay sprawled behind him, its dark walls lit by oil lamps and coal-fed fires. If he could carry Quin into the town, the people there might take care of him.
Or they might kill him, just the same.
Movement in the darkness caught his attention. Villagers were beginning to emerge, men and women moving through the shadows down the path that led away from the town toward the lightfields. The sight fed Darien with hope. He sprinted toward the road, eyes scanning desperately over the faces of the people emerging from the town’s gate. The people of Qul paid him little mind, just strode past him with gazes lowered respectfully, keeping their distance. A few looked startled at the sight of the blue robes he wore, a look of wonder filling their face before they lowered their eyes.
Apparently, some people still recognized what those ancient robes once signified.
“Ranu kadreesh, nach’tier,” one man muttered as he passed by, right hand pressed against his chest. Darien brought his own hand up reflexively, returning the greeting. He frowned in puzzlement.
But then he saw Azár’s face coming toward him through the crowd. She looked up, eyes widening at the sight of him. She forged a path toward him through the press of people.
“What are you doing here?” Azár hissed, her face seeming to pale at the sight of him. Her eyes scoured the robes he wore, obviously troubled. “Have you decided to claim our village as your own?”
Darien frowned at her for a moment, at first not taking her meaning. He shook his head in confusion. “No. No, it’s not that…”
He rubbed his eyes, shivering as he desperately tried to collect his thoughts enough to communicate his need. “I have a friend. Another Servant. He’s been injured. I need you to watch over him for me.”
A look of confusion pinched Azár’s face. She pursed her lips, brow crinkling. “I didn’t know you had any friends among the Servants. Except for Myria Anassis.” Her tone sounded almost accusing.
Darien scowled. “It’s not Myria. It’s Quinlan Reis.”
The rain was coming down harder. Fat droplets wet his face, drizzled down his cheeks.
Azár canted her head, staring up at him. “Quinlan Reis was not with us in Bryn Calazar. His name is…malaaq.” Darien had never heard that word before. But its meaning wasn’t too hard to figure out. Like Malikar: blackened. Cursed.
Darien reached up to rub the back of his neck. He shifted his weight over his feet. “I knew him from before. From somewhere else.”
“You met this man in Hell,” Azár concluded dourly. “What sort of friendship can be spawned in the Netherworld, Darien Lauchlin? It can’t be very good.”
&n
bsp; “You’d be surprised.” Darien stared past her to avoid her eyes. “Look, there’s someone else who’s gone missing. I need you to watch over Quin. Get him some help from the village. Don’t leave his side, not for a moment.”
Azár stared up at him, mutely searching his face. At last she nodded, seeming a bit saddened by what she saw. “This person you seek must be very important to you,” she said at last. “Go, then. I’ll watch your friend.”
♦ ♦ ♦
The Khazahar Desert, The Black Lands
The road was long. And dark.
Darkness fell like cloth torn from the long drape of sky. It bled like running dye trailing downward to the ground, seeping into the depths of rock and soil. Meiran regarded the ink-black sky through the tattered fabric of the scarf she wore tied over her face. The scarf kept away the scouring dust flung at her by the wind. The fabric was a kindness, one of the only two she’d been allotted on the journey. In her right hand she clutched the other: a thin string from which dangled a small sack of water. They had not allowed her any food. Meiran understood why. She was not a guest of the soldiers who accompanied her; she was their captive. Her life was not by any means guaranteed.
Meiran glanced sideways at the man who walked beside her. He was tall and heavily-muscled, with dark bronze skin and a meticulously groomed beard. Like the other soldiers in the column, he was dressed in a long blue tunic. He wore a curved sword and dagger tucked into the gold sash that encircled his waist.
The soldiers marched with the practiced silence that comes only with years of hard-earned discipline. The man leading Meiran with a hand on her arm kept her moving at a merciless pace. There was no slowing between halts, no matter how much her lungs and legs burned. If she stumbled, they dragged her forward until she got her feet beneath her again. The stone-faced warrior never glanced her way, never offered any words of assurance. His vision remained fixed on the back of the man ahead of him, one hand on her arm, the other on the hilt of his weapon.
There was nothing she could do to resist; they had taken her into a vortex. She had been forced to seal her mind off from the magic field, protecting herself from the surging currents that surrounded her.
Meiran loosened the scarf over her face and brought the water sack up to her lips. She tilted her head back and tried to shake the last few drops free from the sides of the container. There was barely enough to wet her tongue. She glanced at the silent man striding next to her, but he refused to look at her. Meiran drew the scarf back into place, letting her arm fall to her side.
She stumbled ahead, icy gusts of wind pushing at her from behind, rippling the skirt of her dress about her legs. Her mouth was horribly dry, her whole body weak and faltering. Meiran staggered, the iron-forged grip of her guard the only thing keeping her upright, keeping her in line.
They walked for hours through the darkness, through the cold and brutal wind. A mountain range grew upward from the ground in the distance, cutting like jagged teeth from the flat desert. The summits were encased with snow that shimmered with an eerie phosphorescence. The peaks rose before them, higher and higher, until they seemed to loom overhead, spiking upward to stab the clouds.
The road they travelled took a turn at the edge of a lake that lapped against the foothills. Here, there was no wind. The water of the lake was black and smooth, like polished obsidian glass. Meiran gazed down into the inky water, not liking the look of it.
Her escort led her across a stone bridge built over a narrow arm of the lake, to the walls of an imposing fortress carved into the mountainside. Conical towers and jagged fortifications marked where the walls of the mountain gave way before the labors of men. Narrow windows winked from random heights among the towers, lights flickering like a sky full of stars.
The entrance to the fortress was a high, vaulted arch guarded by an enormous raised portcullis. Meiran staggered forward through the opening, compelled by her guardian’s iron grip. Once inside the outer gate, the soldiers assembled silently into two ranks, arrayed out to either side. Meiran sagged over her feet, lightheaded and shaking. She was grateful they had arrived somewhere. The long march across the desert was finally at an end.
But she was still within the raging torrent of the vortex. She knew better than to lift her hopes too high.
The air around them was cold.
The dark fortress was enormous and daunting in every dreadful way. The courtyard bustled with silent efficiency. Meiran’s hand snatched the shawl from off her head and wound it instead about her arms and shoulders for warmth. Her exhausted trembling became shivering, her muscles reacting violently to the chill. All around the edge of the courtyard, flaming braziers provided light and heat for stationed sentries. But the warmth of the flames didn’t travel very far.
A group of officers approached from the other side of the courtyard, plumed helms carried at their sides. Their uniforms were much more elaborate the than men Meiran had travelled with. The soldiers on either side of her remained standing stiff and straight, not twitching so much as a muscle. Their absolute stillness was both impressive and frightening.
The officers stopped in a line in front of her not an arm’s length away. Meiran kept her gaze focused on the man positioned right in front of her. Like most of the other soldiers, this man wore a short beard expertly groomed to accentuate the angle of his jaw. His eyebrows were thick, his eyes black and penetrating. He stared at her with a face devoid of expression. After a moment, he issued a slight nod.
The two soldiers to either side of Meiran caught her up by the arms and dragged her forward, staggering, around the line of officers. She tried to keep up with their long strides, but her legs wouldn’t work fast enough. She was too tired, too weak, too exhausted. They half-dragged, half-carried her toward a portal on the other side of the courtyard. At first, she struggled. But struggling took more energy than she had. Meiran collapsed, only to be scooped up in a rock-iron embrace.
♦ ♦ ♦
Darien gazed up pensively at the sky. Then he lowered his eyes back down to the ground, at the gray-flecked sand beneath his boots. His eyes darted back upward before he swung his body around, heading back in the direction he’d just come from. His skin itched, crawling with the feel of infestation produced by the vortex that surrounded him. He’d walled his mind away from it going in, and had kept that barrier in place for half a day as his boots crunched on brittle clots of sand, every step harder to bear than the last. He had gone as far into the vortex as he could stand. He couldn’t bring himself to take another step.
Gusts of wind drove clouds racing toward him. The same wind whipped at his face, fed his eyes with dust. He walked stooped forward into the wind, letting it beat against his brow and ripple his robes out behind him.
His eyes found the tracks he had followed into the vortex.
They had passed this way. A group of twelve men who marched in disciplined formation. Darien’s eyes flicked across the ground, retracing the prints back again in the direction of Qul. The signs of Meiran’s passage in their midst were obvious. Every so often she’d taken a lurching step to the side, breaking the even tracks of the files. She was alive, at least. That was some comfort. Darien trudged forward into the hellish wind, eyes narrowed against the chaffing dust.
You’ve gone somewhere I can’t follow.
Meiran’s words seemed to linger, tormenting him on the wind. They dripped with the bitter poison of irony. Meiran had gone somewhere Darien couldn’t follow. He couldn’t bring himself to, not without more assurance than just the sword at his back.
He trudged on, shoulders sagging and back bent under a heavy burden of guilt. He walked for hours until, at last, he staggered into the rock-strewn ravine by the village. The wind had died down; the night was still. The town of Qul was aglow with the light of dozens of lanterns and cook fires.
Azár and Quin were gone. Instead, in their place, lingered a tattered old man with leathery skin and a toothless grin, face pitted by years and disease. He sat lea
ning against a large rock, his skeletal hands encircling the protruding burls of his knees. His beard was like a thick mass of cobwebs that engulfed his neck, hanging low over his chest.
“Darien Nach’tier. Azár ni Suam asked me to wait here for you. I will show you to her home.”
Darien drew up, considering the unlikely fellow before him with a mixture of gratitude and confusion. There was something peculiar about this stranger who stared blatantly past him. It took Darien a moment to realize that the fellow must be blind. He moved forward, helping him gain his feet.
He took the old man by the arm. The fabric of his tunic was coarse, no better than a shredded, brittle rag. The man reached up and laid a wrinkled hand on Darien’s face. The hand roved slowly over his cheeks, exploring his nose and the angle of his jaw, the corners of his mouth. The stubble of his chin.
“Lead me into town.” The man waved in the vague direction of the gate.
Darien couldn’t help but stare into the man’s face as he walked. He wondered who this new companion was. Was he a relation of Azár’s? Or just someone convenient she had found to keep watch?
They entered the town through the thin opening in the wall. Darien allowed his guide to lead him down a slender path between the town wall and a mud-brick dwelling two stories high. The blind fellow seemed to know exactly where he was going, leading him forward with sure, unfaltering steps. He didn’t seem to need much help to find his way; it was almost as though his feet had the path before him memorized.
“You are married?” the old fellow inquired. He spoke Rhenic very well. Darien wondered where he’d learned it.
He shook his head, glancing into the opening of an alley. “No. I never had the chance.”
The old man patted his arm. “The chance will find you. It is better to be married.”
Darien arched an eyebrow, the thought occurring to him that maybe his new companion wasn’t aware of who he was. Didn’t he know he walked beside a dead man clothed in borrowed flesh? What woman would let herself be shackled to such a monster?
Darklands (The Rhenwars Saga Book 3) Page 24