“Me neither,” a woman said. She came to stand beside him. “I also have a power. I can throw my voice.”
The last statement came from somewhere a few feet above their heads and several people in the crowd chuckled.
“I can understand birds,” a middle-aged man said from the back. “I can speak with them.”
“And I can see in the dark,” a woman called out.
“I don't have a power,” a young man said and stepped forward. “But I'll still fight by your side.”
Others voiced their agreement until it became clear no one would be taking Faillen up on his offer to leave. He turned to his father again.
“You're the only one, it seems.”
“I'm sorry,” Cadell said. Faillen opened his mouth to argue further, but Cadell held up his hand. “I'm sorry I was too afraid to tell you the truth. I was ashamed until the day you told me Caide had developed his power. I love him as much as I love you, and I realized I couldn't hate his power and still love him. As his power grew, I also realized how wrong we've been to ridicule people with powers. They aren't weaker than we are, or lazier. It takes strength to bear the weight and responsibility a power brings. It took me too long, but I recognize it now.”
Faillen shook his head. “I wish I could believe you.”
“It's true,” Thane said. “If you don't believe him, then believe me. He promoted me even though he was aware of my power.”
Faillen stared at the younger man in surprise. “You have a power?”
“I do. I told him about it after you and Caide left. I thought it might help us defeat the Mardróch.”
“It has helped,” Cadell said. “He can track animals, people, whatever he wants. He uses his power to find villagers when they escape Stilgan's grasp and to avoid Mardróch.”
“I see,” Faillen said and studied Thane for a minute before responding. “So your hunting skills weren't all natural.”
“That depends on your definition of natural,” Thane responded with a grin. “If these powers come from the lands, as you so eloquently stated, then my tracking is more natural than yours.”
Faillen returned the smile, and then let it slip away as he directed his attention back to his father. “If you learned to accept those with powers, why did you hide the truth from me? Why didn't you share that bond with Ree?”
“Because I was a coward,” Cadell said and pressed his fingers to his forehead, rubbing at the wrinkles in his skin. “I kept it from you initially from shame, and then when I no longer felt shame for it, I was afraid the truth would anger you. I wasn't wrong about that. You are mad. I wasn't ready to face your anger before you left. Then when I was ready, I thought I'd have time after you returned. I never wanted Ree to…to,” his voice failed him and he closed his eyes. “I can't forgive myself for what I did to her. She should have known the truth.”
“We all live with that fear and guilt,” Thane told him. “It burrows into us with each lie we tell, and it steals from us what's most important. My sister and I could have given each other support, helped each other with the confusion of having a forbidden power, but we were both too afraid to speak of it. I think for Zeiihbu to change, we all have to accept our failings. We have to forgive our cowardice at the same time we forgive those who ridiculed our powers.”
“I agree,” said the man who had first stepped forward. “I can't say I would feel any less guilt than you, Cadell, if my wife were to die today. You kept your heritage from Ree, and I keep who I am from my wife. But in order to break out of the chains we've forged for Zeiihbu, we have to let go of the past. Otherwise, we'll only create new restraints with our guilt.” His attention moved from Cadell to Faillen. “If you truly want a better Zeiihbu, it has to start with you.”
Faillen pressed his lips together and then nodded. “You're right, Egan. We all have guilt to bear and guilt to forgive.” He faced his father. “I'll always regret that I didn't stand up for Ree when others made her feel shame for her family's Ærenden lineage, but I console myself with the fact that Ree knew I loved her. She felt your love for her, too.”
Cadell's tears flowed freely, but he smiled through them. He grasped the side of Faillen's neck and brought him in for a hug. “We fight together,” Cadell said. “We fight for your son. We fight for a new Zeiihbu, and above all, we fight in Ree's name.”
Faillen nodded and when he and his father separated, his eyes looked wet. Meaghan wiped a tear from her cheek and knew she was not the only one crying. She could not see a dry eye within the crowd, and certainly not one from her father's cousin and his tribe, who had arrived in silence shortly after the start of Faillen and Cadell's argument.
§
“CAN WE settle on fifteen people? I'm not comfortable with ten. Stilgan easily has fifty at his command, more if he turns the villagers against us.”
Meaghan glanced at the worry lining Cal's face and nodded. “Darvin said we can do as many as twenty.”
“But no more,” Darvin warned. “The spell won't work beyond that, and there are already three of us committed.”
“Four,” Cadell said. “Or five, I guess,” he corrected when Everel coughed beside him. “Thane will be a good asset. His skill with the bow is second only to Faillen's.”
“I will come as well,” Anissa said, nudging her way into the circle. She offered Cal a purely feline smile when he glared at her. “You said leaders only in the discussion. I lead an army of my own.”
“And a valuable one,” Cadell agreed. “But what can you offer this meeting?”
“My services,” she responded. “I want to be among the invisible attackers. It will be easiest for me to call the pack into battle if I am already fighting.”
“Fine,” Cal agreed. “If you want to fight, I'm not going to stop you, but you'll be more effective as a razor beast than as a ghoul.” She hissed at him and he rolled his eyes. “As a human then,” he said. “Either way, your claws are your best asset for fighting.”
“My barbed tail is also not a bad tool to have,” she offered. “Changing back into a beast works for me.”
“Good. That leaves us with fourteen slots left to fill. Are we certain we can't just cast the spell as many times as we need to cover everybody?”
“Positive,” Darvin responded. “For some reason, the spell weakens when it covers large items. It doesn't matter if it's cast once or a dozen times over smaller groups. The spells bond themselves together when they're close.”
“Zeyed's doing, I'm certain,” Cadell muttered. “I'm sure he foresaw the potential for war with the spell.”
“I'm certain,” Cal said. “Egan will make a good fighter. I can manipulate his fireballs well enough if he stays by me.”
“Who else then?” Darvin asked. “Mycale will stay hidden in the woods so he can heal people as needed. Since only our people will be able to see him, that should keep him safe from attack throughout the fight. This way we don't have to worry about losing a Healer.”
“It makes better sense for you to stay hidden,” Mycale objected. “You have more experience.”
“With fighting too,” Cal pointed out. “Sorry, Mycale, but I'm going to agree with your father on this one. You're more than capable of handling field injuries, and we need his sword.”
“All right,” Everel said, “then on my side how about—”
“Enough!”
The roar came from behind the small circle and all eyes turned to the source of it. Faillen glared at them, his chest heaving. Meaghan stretched her power out to him and realized more than anger drove him. Panic owned more of his mind. The sun had started to dip below the tops of the trees. They were running out of time.
“Everel, Dat, each of you pick six of your best men. I don't care who they are or why you pick them, but pick them now. We have an hour's walk to get to the village and we can't fight in the dark.”
Everel nodded and moved down the line of his tribe, selecting each of his best warriors with a tap on the shoulder. Cadell staye
d where he stood and pointed at each of his. When they were through, Meaghan used her power and the ancient spell to make each of them disappear, no more than an afterthought to the air.
“Those who are invisible, follow Meaghan and me, but remember that while you can't be seen, what you impact can be. If you push a branch out of the way, the branch will move and give away your presence. The rest of you,” Faillen faced the other men and women in the army, “wait fifteen minutes to follow and stay back far enough so that Stilgan's army won't spot you. You know the command. When it's given, join the fight. Any questions?”
When no one spoke, Faillen turned and led them through the woods. Meaghan followed, though her feet felt like bricks as she forced them to obey her command. She did not feel afraid, but she could not ignore her sense of foreboding or the nagging sensation that she was taking the first steps to the last moments of her life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“ALDIN?” CAIDE narrowed his good eye and stared at the blurry figure playing in the town square. It looked like Aldin, but how did he get here?
“Aldin?” Caide called out again. Aldin looked up at him and grinned before turning back to his toys. He had built huts out of sticks and fragment stones, as he used to love doing before they fled Zeiihbu. “Aldin, where are Mata and Dat?”
Aldin split a fragment stone into three pieces and set them down on the ground, end to end, mimicking a pathway to his little hut, but he did not respond.
“Aldin!”
“No one's there.”
The whisper came from the left. Caide's left eye had swollen shut sometime after Stilgan's morning torture. He could not see the guard who had spoken, but he recognized Noll's voice. Caide nodded, but said nothing in case any Mardróch watched. Noll had risked his life to let Caide know he had been hallucinating again. His mother had appeared to him in the early morning fog. His father had called to him in the night. And now this.
How long had it been since Stilgan tied him to the tribal post? Days? Weeks? He could no longer tell time. He could not even remember when he had slept last. He only ate because the guards took turns feeding him after darkness provided cover.
Stilgan still believed the men remained under his control, but Caide had given most of them back their free will and would soon finish the job, freeing the last of his grandfather's soldiers.
If Caide could hold on to his sanity long enough.
“Stay strong,” Noll mumbled before shuffling off again.
Caide had been doing everything he could to honor that request, but it had grown harder after Emma left. She had been his anchor, though he had not realized it at the time.
His fingers felt numb. He wiggled them and then winced when the rope binding his hands rubbed away more skin. A trickle of blood rolled down his palm. He shifted, trying to ease the stiffness in his back, but only succeeded in moving half an inch around the wood post that held him to his spot. For the first time in his life, he cursed his ancestor's artisanship. If they had not been so skilled, Caide would have attempted to break the post or wiggle it free, but he knew better. It had withstood the worst of the elements, including two earthquakes, and he doubted he had the strength to do worse.
He craned his neck, attempting to view the poles origin markings, but he could see nothing more than weathered brown wood. The same wood pressed hard against his cheek. Still, he knew the markings had survived. He had seen them only a day or two before Stilgan tied him to the pole. Four numbers represented the pole's dedication date. A set of triangles paid respect to Zeiihbu's history. And initials honored the artist who had carved the intricate eye once displayed prominently at the top. The same eye Stilgan had taken down and burned shortly after he gained control of the village.
Now Caide was the only thing left on the pole representing his tribe. Thing, Caide thought bitterly. He ran his tongue over the hole where one of his teeth had been and tasted copper. In Stilgan's mind, Caide represented nothing more—a thing, an animal. And one only kept around for play.
The Mardróch reveled in torture. He had broken Caide's nose in two places. Bruises ranged from black to purple and yellow on nearly every inch of Caide's skin. Burns covered his stomach, and cuts and gashes decorated him in so many places he had lost count. Some of the wounds oozed, providing a meal for flies. Though the pests annoyed him with their constant buzzing, he had given up trying to shoo them away days ago.
Caide would die at Stilgan's hand. Of that, he had no doubt. Emma had been right to say so, but he could not tell her he agreed. He had needed her to live. Soon, he would ask the guards to leave, as well.
He tugged on his restraints, and then tried once more to cast a counterspell that would release him, but failed as he had on every other attempt. The ropes only responded to Stilgan's touch. He sighed, tucked his chin against his chest and focused on a spell he could cast, the spell to break Stilgan's mind control power.
His lips moved though no one could see them, and he whispered though no one could hear him. Warmth spread within him, easing some of the cold shadowing his heart, and he cast it toward his grandfather's oldest guard, Tylin. The man's wife had waited by his side nearly every day since Caide arrived. She had clung to the hope that one day her husband would return to her, and today, Caide would honor her faith.
He uttered the last word in the spell, smiled when Tylin's eyes widened and dropped to his wife, and then dissolved his smile as the crack of a whip echoed across the air.
Caide knew Stilgan had not aimed for him, but he had felt the wind of the whip flow over his face anyway and he realized what the evening would bring.
He raised his head to view the Mardróch leader's sinister grin. The webbing lining the Mardróch's mouth seemed dark and Caide nearly lost what little food his stomach contained when he realized it dripped with blood. Stilgan cracked his whip once more. This time it came within an inch of grazing Caide's cheek.
“Today's your day,” Stilgan hissed. He moved closer and Caide smelled rotting flesh on the Mardróch's breath. “Garon said if you won't join him, you can join the worms in the dirt.”
“I don't believe you. Garon still wants my power.”
“He wants a Spellmaster's power,” Stilgan said and chuckled. The sound came out as a soft rattle. “Your brother's will do just fine and he'll be much easier to convert. We may even be able to convince him Garon is his Dat. Garon's always wanted a son.”
“Don't touch him!” Caide surged forward with enough force to wrench his shoulders. “He doesn't have a power. He's no use to you.”
Stilgan raised an eyebrow. “No? We know better. We have spies everywhere. As soon as you're dead, we'll take him from the pregnant woman who watches him.”
Caide's eyes grew wide and he stopped pulling against the ropes. “You wouldn't hurt her.”
“Of course I would, unless you have another solution for our problem. We need a Spellmaster. Do you know of any who are willing to work with us?”
Caide dropped his chin to his chest, then lifted it again and nodded. Stilgan dug his fingers into Caide's hair and yanked up so Caide had no choice but to stare into the monster's red eyes.
“Is that a yes, boy?” Stilgan snarled, tilting Caide's head to break the freezing spell. “Shall I call off our plan to kill the woman and take your brother?”
“Yes,” Caide managed.
“Good.” Stilgan let go of Caide's hair. He stepped back. “You've made the right choice. Now to keep you from forgetting about that choice.” The sound of the whip whistling through the air finished Stilgan's sentence for him. Three leather straps sliced through Caide's shirt and lanced his flesh. He cried out, his scream an escape not only from his pain but from the agreement he had just made.
“Stilgan!”
A voice charged across the air, carrying rage like no other Caide had heard before and it stilled Stilgan's hand, but only for a moment. The whip faltered mid-air and then continued its descent, cutting into Caide's shoulder and coursing fire down to
his toes. Stilgan lifted the whip again.
“Leave my son alone,” the voice roared and this time Caide recognized it. His breath hitched in his throat as he drew his good eye up to scan the edge of the forest for his father's tall form. Caide found him by the charred skeleton of the former cooking hut, though he did not remain there long. He advanced on the Mardróch, an arrow poised in his bow, and another familiar person stepped out of the woods behind him. Caide's eye widened and he shook his head.
“No,” he croaked. “Dat, stay back! You're too close—”
Stilgan's whip made contact with Caide's mouth. He tasted fresh blood and then his lips swelled. Faillen crossed into the realm of Stilgan's power and Caide knew he only had one chance to save his father. He lowered his head and recited his spell, pushing the words out faster than his lips could manage. In desperation, he shot his power in every direction, refusing to focus it. He burned—hotter than his skin when he had accidentally touched a smoldering log as a child, hotter than the sun on the worst summer day. Sweat streaked down his face, and still, he recited.
Stilgan raised his whip again, but did not have the chance to snap it before one of Meaghan's knives sank into the back of his hand. The Mardróch howled and dropped the whip. His free hand pulsed with blue lightning, and he lifted it.
“Garon wants me alive, doesn't he?” Meaghan asked, and Caide thought he saw a smile flash over the Mardróch's lips, though it vanished almost the instant it showed.
Stilgan's lightning dissipated. He pulled the blade from his hand and tossed it aside, then accepted a strip of cloth from one of his Mardróch and used it to wrap his wound. Blood seeped through the cloth, staining it near-black.
“I guess that answers my question,” Meaghan responded. “I'm here because of the deal you made with Faillen, but if you harm Caide again, the deal is off.”
“Is that so?” Stilgan asked. He took a step toward her. “You act like you have a choice in this.”
“I do,” Meaghan responded. “Release Caide and let him and Faillen leave in peace and I'll take his place. You have my word, but only if you honor yours.”
Aerenden: The Zeiihbu Master (Ærenden) Page 36