However, what she did know, deep down in her soul, was that Riken Snowtear’s very life depended on it.
She would hold. By the Fire, the Wind, the Waters, and the Earth….she would hold until the very last whimper of breath seeped from her body.
Still, he waited.
Even as he felt hands reaching underneath his body, lifting then carrying him, he waited.
He no longer felt the steel of Temok’s blade. Its presence within his chest was gone, along with the sharp, biting pain it had furnished. The unforgiving agony in his leg loitered, though, along with his host of new wounds.
His body was in far too much pain to lucidly wonder at the strange situation it found itself in. This is what death is like? Strange, I would’ve thought there would be more singing, and less unbelievable pain. Oh, well. Figures.
“Now,” Sage whispered, a moment before her knees buckled.
Her eyes fluttered open and shut on the ground. A ways off, near Temok’s high seat, she could still see his forgotten sword resting beneath the legs of the table.
She’d done it. Conjuring the sword had been the easy part; concocting realistic flowing blood, that taken considerably more effort. She didn’t know that it would accomplish much in the end, but she’d done it. She’d given Riken the only slim chance she could provide. The great leader of the legendary Black Earth tribe had never even guessed that the blade he held and used to terminate his prey’s life was the tremulous trickery of a little girl’s mind.
Riken’s companions heeded her call.
From the southern entrance of the tent emerged the biggest man she’d ever laid eyes on. Like a rampaging ox, he was. He hit the flaps of the tent at full speed, his massive legs pumping and stomping flat the ground, and never faltered. He never roared. Sage had thought all warriors had their own battle cries, but this one was silent as a sleeping babe as he lifted his enormous battleaxe high over his head and pierced the rows of stunned tribesmen.
What must’ve been going through their minds? The Black Earthers gaped at the storming intruder like they’d just seen a whale running past them. Too long it took them to take in the full reality of the situation. By the time one group did, he was already past them, onto the next row of dumbfounded gawkers, too drunk on the fire wine to think fast enough to deter him.
Sage leapt to her feet on wobbly legs. Her head swam, but she had to act swiftly. A confused rumble was now coursing through the tent, as more and more noticed Riken Snowtear’s giant companion barreling through their ranks. She gathered the children to her, taking care to let each of them feel her touch. They moved in slow, dazed motions, but they attended her appeal, pressing their bound bodies onto her tattered clothes, as if they’d just awoken from a horrible nightmare.
Not over yet, sweetlings, she thought, but said, “Gather round. Stay close to me now. Hold to me, if you can, and don’t let go no matter what happens.”
Tessa looked up at her with sad, wide eyes. Sage tried to offer the girl a smile. She could only hope the look on her face displayed as intended. On her lips, it didn’t feel like a smile at all.
A few coherent Black Earthers were shouting orders, but they were lost in the resonation of the crowd.
The big man’s battleaxe was just visible over the heads of the crowd. It looked like a dashing shark’s fin splitting water on a course for prey. His prey, the great center beam holding the vast tent erect, was mere feet from him now.
Sage whipped her head to the side. Her guards had fled after the giant. Not a soul was within ten feet of her and the girls.
“Now, sweetlings,” she whisper urgently. “Grab onto me and move.”
As she spoke the last word, her eyes found the gleaming head of the giant’s battleaxe. He’d reached the center beam.
Sage heard a solitary, violent blow. She never heard a second, only an exploding burst and crack as the great beam snapped in two. She looked up as the thick, hearty beam – roughly the girth of the magnificent redwoods of Mythstone Forrest – crumbled in on itself with an angry groan. The lofty ceiling collapsed with it.
Screams sliced through the suffocating air as the tent caved in with a great gale of roaring wind. Darkness engulfed her, and Sage darted for the rolls of folded leather that moments ago had been the southern wall. As well as she could with her arms tied behind her, she held tight to the girls, frantic one of them might be left behind. Forced to her belly by the compressing ceiling, she dragged herself toward faint, erratic beams of moonlight. When finally she reached fresh air, she felt hands grasping at her that weren’t the other girls.
“Nay. Nay,” she screamed, thrashing at the groping hands.
“Calm down,” a voice pleaded. “It’s us.”
The hands gripped her by the sides of her face, and Sage opened her eyes to the face of a nervous woman with curly, brown hair.
“The girls,” Sage said, feeling for them.
One by one, Tessa, Wilma, Gabby, and Renna emerged from the tent. All were crying, but none appeared injured. Sage said a quick prayer of thanks, feeling tears welling behind her eyelids. She looked up to the sweetest moon she’d seen in all her cycles of life, and blindly drew all four girls close.
“Girl, I hope you know what you’ve cost us.”
A gruff man looked at her with what she could only assume was disgust. His face looked like it was about to crack wide open.
“We have to go now,” the woman said, stepping in front of the fuming man.
“Riken,” Sage said.
“Riken’s dead,” the man growled. “Same as the rest.”
“Nay.”
“He is,” the woman said. Even in the soft blue of the moonlight, Sage could see the red encircling her eyes and the slightest glint of moisture.
“He’s not,” Sage said. “Temok’s blade wasn’t true.”
“We haven’t the time for…” the man started.
“Look,” Sage said, and quickly conjured a vibrant red rose on the palm of her hand. It changed from a tight bud to blooming petals, then evaporated.
“You’re an illusionist,” the woman said in a quick breath.
Sage nodded.
“Then Riken’s not…”
“Not yet,” Sage said. “We must go back for him. You take the girls and get them out of here.” She nudged past the woman and grabbed the man’s dingy jerkin by the hem. “You, come with me. We’re not leaving without them.”
“There’s no way in the Seven Layers,” the man said, though he didn’t sound as fatalistic as he posed.
But, as if to emphasize his point, the rancid stench of smoke invaded her nostrils. Sage spun, inadvertently knocking Renna to the ground. The collapsed tent was afire, and raging. A colossal thunderhead of black smoke was vomiting out from the rumpled pile of leather.
“By the Fire,” Sage said, but her feet were already moving toward the tent.
The woman grabbed her by the shoulder.
“You can’t,” she said.
Sage slapped the arm away and grabbed the man by his wrist. “Help me,” she commanded. She reached the edge of the tent, dragging the man along, then turned back to the woman. “Get them out of here, I beg you.”
The woman froze for a moment, her face hardening as if cast in swiftly drying plaster. She looked at the girls lying at her feet, then to the man being urged down by Sage.
“You take them,” she told the man. “Reach the horses, take two if you can’t fit them all on one, but leave the rest for us.”
“Abby,” the man said.
“Go,” Abby said. “She’s right. I can’t leave him, not when there’s even the slight…”
“There’s not, Abby. No one could’ve…”
“Just go,” Abby said, gripping the hilts of the daggers on her hips. “Ride south into the mountains. If we can, we’ll meet you in Harrenport. But be swift, and do not wait for us.”
Feeling the woman’s determination through every vein in her body, eclipsed only by her own burning need, S
age let the man’s wrist slip from her hand.
He looked at Abby with remorseful eyes, but Abby waved him off.
“We came here to save them,” she said. “We have.”
The man nodded solemnly, seemingly unable to move.
“Seven Layers,” Sage screamed as a hand covered in black soot clutched her ankle.
Suddenly spurred by the panic in Sage’s voice, the man found his faculty. He jerked his sword from the sheath on his leg, and in a single, swift slice, cut the offending hand from its wrist. A shrill cry escaped the tent.
The fingers of the detached hand remained froze to Sage’s ankle. She slapped at them in uncontained horror, until they relinquished their deathly hold.
The rolls of tent were bouncing up and down as frantic bodies surged forth for succor from the burning, leather prison. Round mounds like lumps in a crumpled bedspread fought to free themselves from the tent. They looked like rats trapped in a sack of oats.
An untamed mess of hair peeked from one of the folds. With a damning stomp, Abby crushed it like a rotten apple beneath the heel of her boot. Next to Sage, a pair of women shot from the tent like arrows from a bow, slapping their burning furs. Abby drew her two daggers and sliced both of their necks before they’d had a chance to draw a single, fresh breath. At Sage’s back, the man was chopping at limbs that continued spilling from the flattened tent like an unstoppable wave.
“We have to move, Dexter,” Abby shouted. “No way in here.”
The man lifted his heels off the ground and peered beyond them.
“No way anywhere,” he said.
Sage looked past Abby in the same direction. Flaming bodies were emerging from every orifice. The heat of the spreading fire burned her cheeks.
“No use,” Dexter said. “We have to get out before this wave engulfs us all.”
“Nay,” Abby shouted, stabbing the oncoming horde again and again. “I won’t leave him.”
“By the Wind, Abby.”
“Didn’t I tell you to go?” she said, then sliced the fingers of a man halfway free of the chaos within the tent.
“Oh, fuck you,” Dexter shouted, and brought his sword down on a flaming, singed head, splitting it down the middle.
“Fuck you,” Abby shrieked, manic now. Her daggers spun mad, like an out of control wagon wheel.
“Fuck us all if we don’t get our asses out of here,” a deep voice called as a massive, streaking blur rushed past them. Cradled at his sides in his thick, sturdy arms, the giant carried Riken and the other man. Both were unconscious, just flapping limbs encased in the big man’s arms. Their restraints, along with broken planks of wood, were still strapped to their ankles and wrists. The giant never stopped, only called again over his shoulder. “Coming?”
“Wind be good,” Abby yelled, laughing through a barrage of tears. “Dexter, the girls.”
But Dexter already had two of the girls – Renna and Wilma – scooped into his arms. Quickly, he bent to one knee, cut Gabby’s binds with his sword, and said in a tone too soft and sweet amidst the horrors surrounding them, “On my back, girl. Arms snug on my neck, aye, just like you would a horse. Hurry, little one.”
Gabby did as bid with a little helpful shove from Sage. With that accomplished, Sage turned to Wilma as Dexter swept the other girls away.
“We’re going,” she told Wilma.
The little girl shook her head frantically.
“No time for that, sweetling,” Sage said. “We have to go now.”
Wilma shook her head again, her thin hair swinging in her face.
“Wilma,” Sage yelled, then slapped the little girl before she could stop herself. Wilma looked up at her, frightened. “Now.”
“Like we have time for this,” Abby said, sweeping past Sage and wrapping one slender arm around Wilma’s waist. She hoisted the child onto her shoulder, then snatched Sage by the collar, jerking her so hard she almost lost her footing.
She rebounded, though, and was soon skirting away from the inferno growling at her heels. Riken’s rescuer was already out of sight, but she saw Dexter and the three girls not too far ahead, scaling a steep ledge.
Sage chanced a final look over her shoulder. Dozens of bodies had spilt out of the tent now, and still more were coming in droves, but she could tell none would follow. Those that weren’t aflame and screaming were lurched over, spewing smoke and vomit from their ravaged lunges. The fire was a raging, living demon, threatening to strike the havens above with its blazing fists. The engulfing cloud of black smoke had blocked out the moon. Wailing, agonized shrieking flooded the rocky valley, an anguished dirge for the decimated within.
It was utter turmoil – the depravity, the suffering, the illicit agony.
Sage Ullimar smiled. She’d never seen a finer sight.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They rode without stopping for three days and nights.
Their meager water supply – used almost exclusively for the horses – diminished on the third night.
On dawn of the fourth morn, the depleted, brown steed toting Gabby, Renna, and Dexter gave a final, winded neigh and crumbled to the earth. Finally, without loss of the creeping fear riding just behind them, they were forced to halt.
“Those fucking savages have lived in this Water-forsaken wasteland for cents,” Dexter said, rubbing at a bloody scratch on his elbow he’d gotten after tumbling from the crashing horse. Like all the rest of the rescue party, he looked defeated. “Where do they find water?”
“Wells,” Sage said, answering the question for at least the third time in as many days. She’d only seen one twice, when their guards had taken her and the rest of the girls out of the tent they’d lived in for over a week. They’d been forced to draw their own water then cart the heavy buckets themselves. Sage hadn’t argued with the assignment either time, so thirsty and dry she’d been. “Very deep wells.”
Dexter plucked a dirt clod from his hair. He frowned at the lifeless horse he’d fallen from. “The rest of these mounts look worse than the dead one.”
Uther dismounted his horse, and the animal gave a relieved groan. The big man turned to their rear and stared into the empty distance. Sage looked too, seeing nothing but jagged black hills and plains.
“They’ll have to carry us as far as they can,” Uther said. “We can’t tarry.”
“You think they might still follow?” Abby asked.
Riken was riding in front of her on the painted mare, slumped, unable to stay aloft without the woman’s arms wrenched tightly around his waist. He hadn’t regained consciousness yet, but would take the occasional sip of water. His leg was a disgusting stump of raw, pink skin and crusting, infested scabs so plentiful it looked like a slender log of wood covered with red and yellow bark.
“I think we can’t take the chance,” Uther said, still watching the northern skies. “If even a few were sound enough of mind to form a search party, they could be on us within a day. This is their land, their home. They know it well. We are but intruders without a compass.”
“The mounts won’t last another half day,” Illter said. He road low in his saddle, like a half-empty potato sack. His face was a coarse mess of lumpy black and yellow welts. His lower lip was split open and caked with infection. The way he groaned every time he shifted in the saddle, Sage figured he had more than a few broken ribs, but she hadn’t heard a single word of complaint come from him. When they’d still had some, he wouldn’t even take his stipend of water, surrendering it to Riken instead.
“Then they’ll carry us that far,” Uther said. “More, we cannot ask of them. How’s Riken?”
“The same,” Abby said. Her voice carried the hardship of the world on it. “His leg…I don’t…”
Uther looked to Sage. “The little ones?”
“Sleeping, for the most part,” she said, stroking Wilma’s dirty hair. She rode a black horse that Abby had told her belonged to Payton. The noble steed bore Wilma and Tessa, as well. Her mount seemed to be doing the
best of any of them. Understandable, since it carried the least amount of weight. “Their bellies rumble worse than a thunderstorm, but they’ve been able to get by on less water. We’ve become used to it.”
“Will they last?” Uther asked.
“Till when?”
Uther let the question trail off without answer.
“That mountain, way off in the distance,” Dexter said. “Is it part of Sanctuous?”
“I see naught but a faint line on the horizon,” Illter said. “Could be anything.”
“If it is a piece of Sanctuous,” Dexter said, “Harrenport might not be far off. Maybe less than two day’s ride once we reach the foot.”
“If even it is,” Abby said, rubbing at the strained and knotted muscles of her sunburned arm. “If it’s not just another giant, black hill. Even then, we still have to reach it, and I’d say by the look, it’s still at least three days’ travel.”
“By horse,” Illter added.
Dexter grimaced and went back to massaging his sore elbow.
In Sage’s arms, Wilma whimpered. “Shh, sweetling. Just a little longer. We’re almost home.” The lie sounded better than the alternative.
Satisfied or nay, Uther retook his perch on his horse’s sunken back. “We have to move,” he said.
The sound of Riken’s screams woke the girls.
Sage had already been awake for hours, unable to sleep more than a few minutes at a time when every sound she heard in the distance sounded like the creeping footfalls of approaching savages come to reclaim their lost sacrifices.
“He scares me so,” Gabby said, wiggling closer to Sage inside the bedroll.
“He’s in pain, sweetling,” Sage said. “That’s all.”
Wilma was chewing on the worn collar of Sage’s dress. The littlest girl still hadn’t uttered a word. It could be that she never would again. Sage couldn’t find it within herself to blame the traumatized child. In the darkness, she made a quick check with her hands to ensure that all the girls were still near. They were. Sage stroked someone’s shivering head – she thought it was Renna – and drew her closer, as much for the extra warmth as to comfort the child.
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