I had mixed emotions about that. I knew what he'd done the night before—he'd told Kage to kill Hunter and me. Hadn't waited until he knew for sure we were beyond his reach, just arbitrarily gave the order.
If Adahi hadn't stepped in to help, we'd have died at Kerok's hand before I had a chance to turn my full attention to Kaakos. If Hunter hadn't required my strongest shield after forcing Kaakos out of his head, I may have put up a better fighting front.
"You have that look on your face," Pottles said when I stopped eating.
"What look is that?" I dropped my eyes to stare at the scrambled eggs on my plate.
"The one that says you're furious about something."
"I heard him, Pottles. What do you think I should feel about that?"
"Heard who?"
"Kerok. Last night, when he ordered Kage to kill Hunter and me."
"Ah."
"You were there; I heard you arguing with Adahi."
"I see." It was her turn to drop her eyes. "Your body was convulsing, Sherra. As if you were having a seizure. We didn't know what to think of that, other than to assume that Kaakos had taken both of you."
"Trust me—if he'd been able, I'd have died last night. I can't say I was winning, but we were deadlocked. Adahi's connection to me forced us apart. Now Adahi's dead, because nobody else thought to help."
"I doubt any of us would have known how to help." Pottles sounded regretful. "How did you force Kaakos away from Hunter?"
"My dreamwalker did that. He didn't expect us to fly into Hunter's mind like that, and knock him away. Of course, he corrected for that immediately after, and grabbed onto me while my dreamwalker was building a shield around Hunter's mind."
"Deadlocked, you say?"
"We were certainly at an impasse. I felt and saw the vile, black evilness that is Kaakos. His mind was a writhing nest of poisonous snakes, to me."
"You saw his mind and you're sitting here, talking to me?" She sounded incredulous.
"Yes. When Adahi connected his power to mine, I thought we were going to extricate ourselves together. Adahi had a different idea." I felt like crying when I spoke about his sacrifice. He called me daughter. No other man had done that, not even my own father.
"Thorn wants to train the special troops beginning tomorrow," Pottles sighed. "He wanted to do it today, but other things have prevented it."
"You mean he wants me to teach them," I said.
"Yes. I understand he hasn't approached you on the matter. He did ask me to send a message to Cole, however, and he will certainly be here tomorrow."
"Then Cole and I will handle it. Feel free to pass that message to Kerok."
"You don't want to tell him yourself—and yell at him at the same time?"
"That will take energy that I'm unwilling to spend on him."
"Ah."
"I want to see Hunter, too. When he's awake again."
"I'll see what I can do."
"Make it happen, Pottles."
"I'll make it happen."
Kerok
I need to see you, Doret sent mindspeak.
I'm available now—in my study.
Ten minutes later, she let herself in after a brief knock.
"Please sit," I offered a chair. "Would you like tea?"
"I'd take tea," she agreed and settled on one of the chairs opposite me. "I also have news on Sherra. First off, she heard you order Kage to take her life, last night."
"I figured that out." I busied myself with moving things on my desk that didn't require it.
"Then she took me to task for arguing with Adahi when he came to help."
That surprised me; I jerked my head up to stare at her. "What did she say? Exactly?"
"That we should have thought to help her, and we didn't."
"But Kaakos," I said, feeling angry.
"Her dreamwalker didn't hesitate to thrust herself between Kaakos and Hunter's mind—she said that she surprised him by jumping in like that. And she said that she had to expend power to keep a shield around Hunter's mind, while she managed to wrestle Kaakos to an impasse. I have no idea which of them would have ended up on top, but Adahi turned the tide in our favor."
"By making the ultimate sacrifice."
"She said that she thought he was only going to add his power to hers, allowing them to get away from Kaakos. Instead, he forced them apart by exploding the last of his energy."
"Do you feel as if you've lost an important battle?" I baldly asked Doret.
"Yes. I was already feeling guilty. This makes it worse."
"As bad as it is for you, mine is a hundred times worse. You didn't order her death. I did."
"I should have thought to help, and I didn't."
"Same here."
Tea was brought in, so we watched while it was poured and sipped in silence for a while.
"She wants to see Hunter when he's awake."
"I need to see him, too. So far, only Barth and the physician has seen him."
"Then let me know—I'll be the one standing beside you, in case he finds us guilty, too."
"There may not be enough of him there to level blame against anyone."
"I heard about that."
I didn't tell her that Barth was barely speaking to me. My fears kept me from asking if Sherra would see me—or talk to me. I owed her an apology before this happened. Now, things were so much worse.
Armon, I need to see you, I sent. And Levi. Come for dinner. We'll talk.
Is Sherra well enough to see visitors? I and a few others would like to see her.
I'm sure she'll want to see you, although she may still be tired. Come anyway. I need advice from an old married couple.
Secondary Camp
Armon
"I don't know exactly what happened," I said. "I'm afraid to ask anyone else." Levi had asked me why Thorn needed advice now—from a married couple. I'd already told Levi everything I knew, but I still didn't know what happened during Sherra's struggle against Kaakos. If Thorn wanted to discuss that, I had no idea how to respond.
I only knew that somehow, Adahi had stepped in to help her break away from that evil bastard. Adahi was dead—for all time, I suppose. "I'll leave Captain Neele in charge and we'll go to the palace as requested. I'm hoping Sherra will be awake so we can talk with her."
Marc and Wend would normally be left in charge, but they awaited training in the King's City. I had to depend on another backup in the meantime.
"Sherra could have died." Levi leaned his head on my shoulder.
"I know." I rubbed his back. "She's still with us, though. I'm grateful."
"I don't know if I can take any more of this."
His words shocked me. "Levi, what are you saying?" I gripped his arms and pulled him around to face me.
"Things are so different than before. Back then, we had a known enemy, and we lost friends, I admit that. But this—I don't know how to keep doing this, Armon. Without going crazy with it."
"Because we've never been this involved with others? Is that what you're saying?" I pulled him into a hard embrace.
"Some. Yes." His answer was muffled against my chest. "There's just no end to it, and it keeps getting worse."
"My love, stay the course with me through the attack on Ny-nes. I don't know how fast we can make that happen, but Thorn is more than determined, now."
"What if we don't survive it?"
"I wondered the same thing every time we fought a battle with the enemy. We'll either get through it or we won't."
"What if we don't?" Levi whispered.
"We stand or fall together, as it has always been," I told him. "If it comes to that. In the meantime, I think I'd like to meet your family."
"Really?" He pulled away to look at me.
"Really."
Chapter 18
Ny-nes
Kyri
"Does he know how much he resembles?" Garkus didn't say the name. He meant North, who'd left to gather more food.
"I have no ide
a if he knows, and I'm not about to tell him," I said.
"It's uncanny," Garkus mumbled while walking away. Uncanny. To someone who didn't fully understand, it was a good description. I still hadn't told North about Adahi. I held back because I didn't want to see the indifferent censure in his eyes. He wouldn't care. Hadn't cared the last time either, that was obvious.
Adahi. So many times, I'd leaned on his judgment. Gone seeking his advice. I'd shared mindspeak with him often, during my imprisonment inside Kaakos' boundary around Ny-nes.
If I ever made my way back to Az-ca, and that was a big if, I would celebrate Adahi's long life and erect a memorial in his name. I promised him—and myself—that much.
Sherra and I—we needed to talk about Adahi, too. I wanted her to know things that he'd held back. Things he never wanted her to know, but that she deserved to know.
"Food." North set the bag down nearby. "We even have some bread, this time."
Bread. It was almost magical, that word. Wheat didn't grow well in many parts of Ny-nes. Kaakos kept a close watch on its production, and the biggest part of it went to the palace to serve him and his warrior-priest flunkies.
"The raver crossed the river last night," North went on as he settled, cross-legged, on the floor to divide the food in three portions. "If the people weren't already scattering, they started when that news reached them."
"There are too few of them left in the city, and most of those are thieves and cutthroats," Garkus rumbled as he took a seat on the floor opposite North. "If the King of Az-ca ever thought to attack Kaakos, then now would be a good time."
"Welcome to the second stage of my plan," North grinned at Garkus, before pushing his share of food toward him.
"What was the first stage?" Garkus asked before biting into the small loaf of bread he'd been given.
"Getting the people to trust him by healing them, and then sending them out of the city," I said, taking an empty space on the floor between Garkus and North.
"What's the next stage, then?" Garkus spoke around a mouthful of bread.
"That should be obvious," North shrugged. "Confront Kaakos and destroy him. Of course, I'm waiting for Az-ca's troops to arrive to distract his army, first."
"An army without power won't last long, unless they have a stockpile of bombs and weapons," Garkus said.
"They do have those things."
"Where?"
"Don't get any ideas," I snapped at Garkus. "If we destroy that stockpile, it needs to happen just before those troops arrive, and not a second before. Doing it now will turn Kaakos' attention back to us. It's likely he already suspects we're here, after he took over Hunter."
Garkus stopped chewing. North's small loaf dropped to his lap. Both blinked at me in shock.
"I guess you didn't see that, then," I said, lowering my eyes.
"Tell me," North commanded.
"Kaakos invaded Hunter's mind," I began, staring at my hands and the cracked concrete floor below them. "Sherra was the only one who tried to stop it. I don't know the full story on that, but Adahi came to lend his power to Sherra's, to get them away from Kaakos' grip. Adahi blasted the entirety of his power between them, killing himself for all time, to release Sherra and Hunter."
North closed his eyes as if that news pained him. I didn't believe it for a moment. He no longer had that sort of emotion left for old friends and acquaintances. He only had his self-appointed mission, and that was all there was to him, now.
"Are Sherra and Hunter still alive?" Garkus asked.
"Yes, although Hunter's mind may never be whole again. I have that news from Doret."
"Does Kaakos now know everything Hunter did? Did he occupy his mind long enough to see that?" North demanded.
"I don't know. Doret said it was only moments, as she understands it, before Sherra's dreamwalker came to help Hunter. Before that, he was threatening the King."
"Fuck." North stood and walked to a far corner of the room.
"Does this mean we can't surprise Kaakos with an attack? Does he know for sure who we are and that we're here?" Garkus was worried, too.
"I don't know," I confessed. "I'm hoping Sherra will connect with Hunter soon, to learn what it is Kaakos took from him—if she can."
"How much damage did he do to her? Does anyone know?"
"Garkus, you surprise me. I'd almost think you've come from being a misogynist to a believer in a woman's power," I said.
"I've been thinking about what it took to get us here," he admitted, hanging his head. "And the mistakes I've made, and the fact that she showed up the last time, trying to stop me from making another. And," he went on, "I've watched you and North heal people. I had no idea that was possible. I thought the power was only used to fight others."
I didn't ask him to fully explain his change of heart. I didn't want to hear it. Adahi's death still weighed heavy, and I blamed North for holding his help back in Adahi's first death.
Sherra was probably blaming herself for Adahi's second death. I considered that I should contact her in mindspeak soon, to tell her that Adahi always made his own choices, and she had no part in it.
"Eat," North was back, dropping onto the floor again next to his pile of food. "We have things to do tonight."
"What things?" Garkus asked.
"We have a raver to kill," North growled and stuffed food in his mouth.
Jubal
I was sick to death of all the killing, and even sicker of the stench of burned bodies. Most of those we found had no acquaintance with personal hygiene, and that made it worse.
My terror at being killed overrode my desire to get away—that and the fact that my new overlord had placed limits on what little power I had left. I'd learned that only recently, after trying to start a fire beneath a canopy while more rain poured down.
There'd never been a time when I couldn't form a few sparks to make a fire. That small act was now beyond my capability. If I'd ever wanted to murder anyone, outside my worthless escort, anyway, it was the one who'd snatched me away from Az-ca.
I was forced to include one other in my murderous desires; the raver who now stalked narrow tracks between temporary homes across the river. Maybe I ought to include the warrior-priests who held the raver's leash, too—more than once, they'd told him to kill the children of the adults already burned to death—because nobody wanted to take care of the orphans they'd created.
We had to rely on the army for our food, here. There wasn't an easy way to transport provisions from the storerooms that supplied the palace and the other warrior-priests under Kaakos' thumb.
At least we'd gotten regular meals before. Here, we relied on an army, in which we were an afterthought—they were too entangled in an attempt to stop the mass exodus away from Kaakos' city.
We didn't have a comfortable place to sleep, either, and often relied on what was abandoned by fleeing families, or were forced to ask for a place on one of the large boats the army used to cross the river.
A large dock, built from logs, extended into the water from the far side of the river; the warrior-priests led us over it, toward the huge boat anchored there. The two who pushed my cart heaved its wheels over the uneven surface toward the vessel, jarring me and making my bones ache.
I knew not to hope for a comfortable bed at the end of this; the beds on the boats were hard surfaces with perhaps a blanket laid atop. I hated myself for ever believing that what I'd had in Az-ca were unlivable conditions.
"Get that thing to the back of the boat," a commanding officer shouted at the warrior-priests. He'd caught sight of the raver and wanted nothing to do with him. "Take the rest of yours with you; I'll have someone bring your meal. You can sleep on the deck, too. I'll see if there are extra blankets."
If Merrin were still in charge of his senses, he'd probably have turned the officer to cinders for being disrespectful. Instead, he was herded past the man with barely a glance in his direction.
How had Kaakos done that—reduced a powerful warrior
to nothing more than an animal that only acted upon command? All my life, I'd imagined an enemy much like us, who was afraid of us.
This one—I had no idea whether he was afraid of anything. His ability was formidable, and I doubted whether anyone in Az-ca really knew what they'd fought against for centuries.
"Get out." My cart stopped next to the back rail of the boat. They never helped me, either; they expected me to crawl out of the contraption on my own, which I found difficult and generally painful.
On this end of the boat, too, the reek of what they called fuel offended my nose. I was used to cleaner air, and I'd had trouble breathing from the moment I'd been set down in Kaakos' palace.
Once I'd disentangled myself from the cart, I limped to the back rail to stare at the water. As one might expect, it was filthy, filled as it was with soot, leaking fuel, debris and the occasional floating body.
No wonder nobody bathed—the lack of clean water was a real problem in Ny-nes, if all their streams and rivers were like this.
When the boat was hit the first time, it jarred me from my thoughts. It felt as if it had been hit by a fireblast, and shuddered in the water as the noise of the explosion almost deafened me. When smoke and flames billowed high on the other end, I realized that's exactly what had happened.
Someone had fired a blast at us.
Who else in Ny-nes could do that, other than Kaakos? Another blast hit the front of the boat, causing men to scream and many of them to run—I could hear shouting and the echoes of scrambling feet as they ran toward the dock and an escape from the boat.
"Bring him," a warrior-priest commanded my cart-pushers. They rushed toward me, ready to heave me away from the rail and into my cart so we could also flee the burning hulk.
That's when three appeared before us, blocking our way. I blinked. One of them could have been mistaken for Garkus, except for his skin color, which was as pale as mine. Another, he looked—no. That was only my imagination, hoping that someone thought to help me.
The other—the woman? I had no idea, and wondered why she'd come with the men, as she'd likely be useless.
"Kill them," the chief warrior-priest shouted at the raver, who lifted his hands to perform his duty.
Black Rose Queen: Black Rose Sorceress, Book 3 Page 25