Khatrene met Lae’s eyes. ‘I hate him, Lae,’ she said, her gaze drawn instinctively to the swirling tattoo that outlined the right side of her face. ‘He killed both my parents, and now he’s killed my brother. I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone. But I couldn’t have killed him like that.’
‘Nor I, yet the Plainswoman would have.’
They watched Noorinya peel off a strip of dried ort and chew it up raw. She noticed their attention and held out the half-eaten piece. Both Lae and Khatrene shook their heads and Noorinya went back to rifling through Pagan’s pack.
‘Though my father deserves no less,’ Lae said, ‘I am glad Noorinya knew nothing about his presence there. For if she had known and taken action, Mooraz would not have escaped her knife and he does not deserve to die. He obeys my father because he believes in The Dark’s ability to maintain The Balance, as I did. Yet now … I do not.’ Her gaze drifted away. ‘For if my father has been killing only for his own ambition, why has the blackness not covered our lands?’
Khatrene looked at Lae and wondered if the girl would believe her. ‘The blackness that comes ‘like a scythe of death’ isn’t a warning of imminent disaster,’ she said. ‘It’s a simple eclipse. One of the moons passes in front of the sun, blocking out its light.’
Lae was shaking her head now and Khatrene began to wonder if anyone on Ennae would believe her. ‘Like the ceremony tomorrow morning. It’s timed at a solstice. The sun lines up with the opening —’
‘I do not know the meaning of these words,’ Lae said.
‘All right.’ Khatrene could see her frustration. ‘What’s important is that Djahr obviously can’t discern good and evil any more than —’
‘I can,’ Lae said.
Khatrene blinked, remembering that Lae had mentioned aura to the Shadow Woman. ‘You can discern good and evil?’
‘When my womanhood came upon me I began to see outlines and now the power is stronger.’ She raised a finger and traced around Khatrene’s body. ‘Your aura tells me that you are a newly made mother.’
Khatrene wondered if this was a joke. She smiled and patted the baby softly, careful not to disturb its suckling. ‘That was an easy one.’
Lae smiled back. ‘Yet I can also see several darker places. Here, and here.’
She pointed to the knee Khatrene had scraped recently and the shoulder she had fallen on heavily escaping Be’uccdha. The baby had healed them for her at the time but now they ached a little. ‘I’m astonished,’ Khatrene said. ‘But Djahr …?’
Lae shook her head. ‘The wraith attached to his aura,’ she said. ‘The one we saw today with Bhoo. I believe she provided the readings he pretended were his own. Yet she was not always there and on many occasions I saw things he did not.’ She went quiet then and glanced away. ‘I should have told Mooraz of my doubts, of my belief that he had been forced to kill his own parents for no better reason than to ensure his future obedience to my father’s commands. Yet I did not. Could not.’
Khatrene touched her arm in sympathy and then looked back to her feeding baby. After a time Lae tilted her head to look at him as well and said, ‘It is time to change to the other breast. I have seen all this in the servants’ nurseries.’ When Khatrene had learned about burping and her baby was firmly attached to the other breast, again with a force that had her teeth gritting, Lae said, ‘We should not dwell on my father, but instead think about your child who will bring unity to the Four Worlds and an ending to the ways of hate.’
‘Amen to that,’ Khatrene said, ‘but in the meantime I think we should make some preparations. Maybe move our things behind those sarcophagi,’ she pointed across the room, ‘so we can hide if anyone comes.’
‘If my father comes.’
‘Or Kert. Though yes,’ Khatrene admitted, ‘I’m more worried about Djahr. If only I’d done something to slow him down. But all I could think about was saving Mihale.’
Lae touched the child, bringing Khatrene’s attention back to her baby. ‘It was love’s instruction which comes from the heart that drove your actions,’ she said, caressing the small pink cheek with a slender finger before she looked up at Khatrene. ‘Often the heart knows better than the head which course is true.’
Khatrene nodded at this, sure that she’d heard something similar from Talis. ‘What does your heart tell you to do?’ she asked Lae.
The girl smiled sadly and glanced away, her gaze skidding off Pagan and coming to rest on the fire she had made from the rich tapestry drapes and their timber mounting poles that lined the walls. She shook her head, dark hair falling forward to shield her face. ‘Foolish things,’ she replied softly.
Khatrene drew her own conclusions from that. They were silent for some time and Khatrene took the opportunity to admire her child, no thought in her mind of his power or destiny, simply that he was a beautiful baby. His small hand lay against her breast as he suckled and the fingers were perfect miniatures of her own, the fingernails beautifully formed. She stroked his hand, slipped a finger under it and felt a burst of warm happiness as he clutched on tightly. She imagined Talis’s finger being clutched like that, the baby in his arms. She ached to have him back then and wished there was something she could do to find him. But sending Pagan off now would leave them completely defenceless. After the ceremony they could all leave together. There would be strength in numbers.
Lae turned to her. ‘You should sleep,’ she said, and set about making a bed for Khatrene behind one of the raised sarcophagi in the back corner of the room, pulling down the rich curtaining from around its base for a mattress. Noorinya, who had finished the contents of Pagan’s satchel, came to hold the baby while Khatrene sat awkwardly on the dusty fabric. There was blood everywhere but in her current state of exhaustion, Khatrene couldn’t have cared less. Lae bunched a section of drapery together for a pillow.
‘Is the child named?’ Noorinya asked looking at the sleeping babe.
‘Not yet,’ Khatrene held out her arms for her baby. ‘There’s no rush,’ she said and she settled onto her makeshift bed with Lae nearby and Noorinya propped against the hard stone wall so she could see the base of the stairwell. Khatrene closed her eyes and spared a thought for Pagan and her brother, vulnerable in the centre of the crypt. But there was no more they could do.
Tomorrow they would perform the Ceremony of Atheyre and Mihale would live again, not on this world, but in the next. She had to believe that.
Her baby moved in her arms and she gazed down at his small, glowing face, feeling some of the ache in her chest ease. Every time she looked at her son she would see a glimmer of Mihale, in his eyes, his hair, his smile.
Her own smile came slowly then. Glimmer. It was a good name. And though she might never see Mihale alive again, it would remind her that her brother wasn’t really gone. Too much of him still lived inside her.
With that comforting thought in mind, she drifted off to sleep.
It seemed like only minutes, but must have been hours later, when she awoke to the eerie silence of the crypt. Something had disturbed her slumber and as she pushed herself up on an elbow, Lae touched her arm, raised a finger to her lips then pointed towards Noorinya who was padding behind the sarcophagi in the direction of the stairwell. Khatrene lost her in the shadows.
Lae leant over and covered Glimmer’s glowing face with the edge of her wrap. They waited in tense silence, then a choking sound was heard. Khatrene crawled to the edge of the sarcophagus and peeped around, saw boots coming down the stairs, and watched with a sinking sensation
as Kert came into the faint glow of their firelight with Noorinya held under his knife.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Talis crouched beside the cold body of his uncle, knowing he should feel grief at this untimely loss, and anger at his inability to prevent it. Yet all that lived within his heart was dread fear for Khatrene.
Beside the body of his uncle there lay a pool of blood whose hue was unmatched on Ennae. Royal blood. Either the King himself or his royal sister had been mortally injured and dragged outside the tent hours earlier, yet Talis found no body, only footsteps leading to the forest. Many footsteps.
Sh’hale and Be’uccdha guardsmen lay slaughtered across the deserted encampment and Talis could only conclude that Be’uccdha had come seeking his wife.
He cursed now that he had not remembered that the King would be camped here on his annual pilgrimage to the Ceremony of Atheyre. Once captured, Khatrene would have been brought to her brother, yet neither remained and whichever had been wounded would be in dire need of healing.
He must find his beloved quickly, but how?
Leaving his uncle, Talis followed the bloody trail of drag marks outside the tent where they stopped. There was no further trail to follow and though despair threatened to overwhelm him, Talis tried to stay calm. He would return to Pagan and together they would search the Shrines.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
‘Is your Guardian protector here with you?’ Kert asked Noorinya, his knife pressing against her throat.
Though she was afraid for Noorinya, Khatrene felt instinctive relief. Talis must be safe.
Noorinya’s eyes searched out the shadows where she knew Khatrene and Lae hid. She shook her head minimally, enough to give them the idea of staying put.
Then Kert’s eyes found Mihale on the altar. ‘My Lord and King!’ He thrust Noorinya towards a guardsman who had followed him down and ran to the central altar, to his fallen King’s side. Khatrene watched as he laid a hand on Mihale’s wound, the expression of horror on his face so raw that Khatrene felt her own grief resurface.
Pagan gave no acknowledgment of the intrusion, but remained still and focused on his task, standing beside his King, one palm resting on his forehead.
‘How comes My Lord and King to be so grievously wounded?’ Kert said, shock and disbelief reducing his voice to a whisper.
Khatrene struggled to decide whether Kert was a danger to her. If Djahr arrived before dawn they’d need help to keep him away while the ceremony was performed. She might not like Kert, and he certainly hated Talis, but she had an instinct that he’d do anything for Mihale. So shaking off Lae’s arm, Khatrene picked up her sleeping child and stepped around the side of the sarcophagus. ‘Be’uccdha stabbed your King while he had no Champion to protect him,’ she said, coming out of the shadows to face Kert. ‘Your petty fight with Talis cost my brother his life. I hope it was worth it.’
Adrenalin rolled through her veins but she was proud of the cool control in her voice. Never mind that her lower half was soaked in blood and she had nothing to defend herself with but her wits and her tongue. Kert had been fiercely loyal to Mihale. She would turn that to her advantage.
‘The Light of Ennae,’ he acknowledged.
Khatrene couldn’t read his tone, wasn’t sure if he was being respectful or simply teasing her, until he raised his sword to her chest.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Breehan was far from Plainsman lands and travelling trails he had never explored. Yet the direction of the sun each day assured him they would soon find themselves leaving forestland and finding mountains. When they were safely hack into rocky terrain, they could travel west at their leisure.
Hanjeel, at seventeen, was the eldest of the children and had assisted greatly in keeping the younger ones fed and moving. Though one baby had become sick for want of its mother’s milk, the rest had thrived on the mother-weed they had found along the way and broken into pieces the babies could suck, drawing the nourishing liquid from the succulent leaves.
Their shelter this night was an empty stone temple with strange murals on the walls. The children had laughed at the depictions of people in love’s embrace with amorous plants. Breehan himself had smiled at one particularly unlikely coupling, yet Hanjeel found no joy in anything. Breehan knew he pined for his mother and only caring for his baby brother and the others kept him interested in surviving. The death of his brother Weedah had stolen the sparkle from his eyes.
With the evening meal completed, Breehan settled the babes to sleep. The older children then clustered at his feet to hear the story of another tribal separation which had occurred many generations ago when the Raiders had first been outcast from their Houses and had tried to claim Plainsman lands. Then, too, a band of children led by the Storyteller of their tribe had travelled to the Northern Mountains where they had hidden from their enemies while the adults had fought the Raiders and driven them back to the forests.
Breehan had barely begun his story when he noticed Hanjeel was not with them. This was not a reason for alarm, as he might be any number of places; collecting wood, taking one of the children to relieve themselves or doing so himself, exploring the temple; yet Breehan felt apprehensive at his absence. He sent the next eldest to look, who returned to say that Hanjeel was not in the temple nor close outside.
Signalling for the children to lie quiet and sleep, and the two young sentries to stay alert, he rose himself to look and though he could not venture far from his charges, he assured himself Hanjeel was not nearby. He whistled a call and waited. No reply.
If Hanjeel did not return by morning they would have to search for him, and Breehan knew he would find little sleep that night for worrying. The memory stone at his throat warmed and he fingered it absently, wishing that all the Plainsmen had such a talisman to protect them from harm.
Alas they did not.
*
By the side of a fronded handwood, Hanjeel, son of Noola, stood gazing into the forest he had seen depicted in the temple. It had not been hard to find. He had simply followed the silent calling in his mind.
Hanjeel. Hanjeeeeeeeel, the voice whispered in his ear, more seductively than any woman could. The leaves strained to touch him and Hanjeel could think of nothing but being touched, being pleasured. Distantly in his memory lay Breehan and the children in his care, children Hanjeel was also responsible for. Yet while the forest called to him and filled his mind with the hot, sibilant promise of a life of pleasure, he could forget anything.
Come to us, Hanjeel, the forest whispered and he reached out a hand. Hot sucking leaves closed over it and the scent that rose around him dizzied his mind and set his heart pounding. The forest pulled on his arm and he stepped willingly into its embrace, gasping as it took his body.
Behind him the forest closed over and again became still, its leaves only trembling slightly as it sent out its silent siren call and waited for its next victim to arrive.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Talis watched the Royal Shrine from a place of concealment, his anxiety growing with each minute that passed. He had come upon Sh’hale’s party of nine guardsmen and begun to trail them, the better to avoid capture while he searched for Khatrene and Pagan who was also missing. They had paused only a moment near the Royal Shrine when Noorinya appeared at its mouth and was taken by one of the Sh’hale guards.
Kert and his men had then descended into the Royal Crypt and remained there quietly ever since. Talis’s instinct was to try and help Noorinya, yet the life of The Light and her child might depend on his own. He must not take unnecessary risks, despite the fact that he would find fierce pleasure in confronting Sh’hale with a sword.
Yet just as Talis was considering whether to watch longer or move on, Noorinya appeared again at the opening and looked around into the near forest. How she had escaped Kert was unknown to Talis, yet why
she did not simply run for freedom puzzled him further.
Her gaze did not find him in his concealment and he would not reveal himself on the assumption that Noorinya was Kert’s bait, until she raised her head and let out a shrieking whistle — the peacetime call to celebrate a new birth.
Talis was up and running in a second.
She caught him at the entrance and called to those below, ‘He is here,’ then to Talis she said softly, ‘Your woman is below and in good health, as is her child, yet her brother lies dead.’
Talis knew he should feel grief for his King but his heart was full of joy that Khatrene was alive. ‘Sh’hale?’ he asked, his breath short.
‘Calls your woman Queen,’ Noorinya said, ‘and obeyed her when she ordered me released.’ This appeared to surprise Noorinya as much as it did Talis. ‘The Dark killed your King,’ she went on, ‘and for this Sh’hale bears much guilt.’
Talis closed his eyes, the better to control his anger. Battle-fury rose within him at the knowledge that The Dark had taken, not only a brother from his sister, but a king from his realm. However, Sh’hale was no ally Talis would trust at his side. ‘He would not believe The Light so easily,’ he told Noorinya. ‘I fear this is a trap.’
‘Trap or no, I leave it,’ Noorinya said, ‘and make for the mountains, there to find my people again.’ She touched her small belly. ‘I have a child of my own to deliver.’
Talis gripped her arm, as he would a fellow warrior. ‘Good speed,’ he said, and as she ran out into the night he hastened down the stairwell to the Royal Crypt below.
Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1 Page 48