by Ellyn, Court
With their dead, and with Nyria and three others stationed at Tírandon as sentries, the troop was reduced to thirteen. Thirteen whom Thorn had asked to wade into hell with him. Thirteen against how many ogres?
“Would you relax?” Laniel said.
“We can’t afford to wait any longer,” Thorn argued.
“We’ve only been waiting six hours. That’s a decent night’s rest, which we all needed after running for nearly five days straight. Sit down and take advantage of the opportunity. They’ll be here.”
On the unbearably slow march to the Barren Heights, Thorn had settled on the fact that Kethlyn’s plan might not draw as many ogres away from the Kaem as they hoped. He’d sent Saffron racing north to Linndun. Within hours, Lyrienn had sent the fay back with a response. “Because you helped rout the Black Marsh ogres from Avidanyth, the Lady is willing to help you in return. She is sending a thousand Regulars. They will meet you near the headwaters of the Leathyr.”
And so Thorn waited beside the mossy hill where the waters broke from the ground. Seeping, dripping, gurgling from secret places in the earth, the channel lay bright under the moonslight, winding north and west for the Avidan. A twisted cottonwood presided over the spring, the only tree in sight. Heart-shaped leaves shivered in a quickening breeze. White-tufted seeds drifted down like summer snow.
Deceitfully peaceful, this place was.
Without doubt, his delay—even a matter of hours—was costly. How many of Kethlyn’s men were dying while he waited for the Regulars to arrive? How many imprisoned avedrin slipped toward death as the hours trickled by?
Fear seeped through him, cold and clammy. He might be too late. He stifled a groan and looked to the sky. She was there. He felt her, veiled beyond the veil. The Mother-Father, one with the stars and the vast distances between them. That immaculate, gentle, cruel Light. Damn you if she’s dead. Damn you and me both.
The Goddess did not deign to defend herself. The sky remained silent and, oh, so distant.
Thin silver light swelled in the east. The moons shined brilliantly, defying the approaching dawn. Both Forath and Thyrra perched almost directly overhead, peering down on the hollow in unified anticipation. But the stars faded, growing weary with waiting.
Thorn too. He turned to Laniel. “We must go. Now.”
Laniel looked up from the arrows he was doling out. “Have you lost all reason? Requesting troops was the first sense you’ve shown in days, and now you want to charge in before they arrive?”
“Waiting could be the end of her!”
Laniel stepped over his bow and quiver and laid a hand to his oath-brother’s shoulder. How many times over the past few days had he eased Thorn’s panic? Thorn was sick of it. If Laniel would not follow, he would go alone. He brushed the Elari’s hand away and turned to call for Záradel.
A warbling whistle like a finch’s song descended the hill. Azhien waved an arm, silhouetted against the burgeoning dawnlight. Between his hands, he called softly, “I see them! They come.”
The column approached over the moor, winding like a silver-scaled dragon. White banners blazoned with the silver crescent of the sister moon fluttered like wings across the dragon’s back. Forath’s waning red light tipped the staves of bows, the curves of helms in smoldering flame. Silently, silently, they marched, their feet making barely a rustle in the grass. Neither song nor horn nor drum announced them to their enemy. There was only the soft thump of horse hooves in the moist earth.
“Cavalry too,” Thorn muttered, staring in awe. A hundred? Two hundred? Yes.
Laniel huffed. “What won’t my sister do for you?” He started down the hill, Thorn in tow, to greet the commanding officer.
The column came to a startling, immediate halt. A stirring of the wind fingered the banners. Otherwise there was no movement until one of the riders separated from the vanguard. Scale and plate armor lent itself to shapely curves. Thorn was trying to guess which of the female officers might have been given command of the Regulars when the woman spoke.
“Greetings, brother. Dathiel.”
Thorn broke into astonished laughter.
Lyrienn’s thick golden braid cascaded from beneath a helm that concealed all but her eyes, mouth, and chin. She wore a sword on one hip and a bow on her back. Her belt of throwing knives girded her waist.
Outraged, Laniel grabbed her horse’s bridle. “What are you doing here? Lyrienn, where is your commander?”
“Dead. One treachery after another. Blood ran in the streets. Such a reign, to begin like this.” The sorrow cleared from her eyes, and a chill overcame them. The family resemblance was unnerving. It wasn’t in Laniel’s eyes that Thorn had seen such a cold-bladed glare, but in Lothiar’s. “Now I lead the Regulars. Until such time as the world is freed of Lothiar’s influence.” The steel in her tone implied she would brook no argument. She turned to Thorn. “Where do you need them?”
Thorn lay on his belly in the tall grass. The sun struck his shoulders and the top of his head like a burning brand. Sweat trickled down his temples. He had shed his robe, stuffed it into his saddlebag and left it with Záradel back at Lyrienn’s camp. His staff, too. Unwieldy it was, though he suspected he might later wish he’d lugged it along. Like the dranithion ranging out to each side of him, he slid like shadow in gray suede through the wind-bent tufts.
Direhead Ridge reared up from the bogland, dead ahead. Slightly removed from the rest of the Barren Heights, the landform’s rocky spine ran north-south, at odds with the east-west flow of the hills. Elaran legend claimed the Ridge had been one of the Nothari, a race of giants who had earned the Mother-Father’s curse for stepping on her mountains, her lofty footrests, to create low, dark places.
Easy to see how the tale had originated. Promontories bulging to each side of the spine might be hips, shoulders, an elbow. And the cast of shadows and light transformed the knobby northern escarpment into a frowning face. A bulbous nose, empty eye sockets, an open mouth turned toward the sky in a sculpted expression of agony.
Long had the Fire Spear ogres called Brogula Kaem home. They had carved miles of tunnels through its bowels, invading the giant’s corpse like worms. Three or four years ago, Thorn and a squad of Regulars had infiltrated those lightless, reeking passageways. A disorienting maze, nearly impossible to navigate. Thorn’s fires had lit the way. The trail of slain ogres had shown them the path out again.
Carah and the rest of the avedrin might be in any one of the caverns. And if Thorn knew his enemy at all, he’d guess Lothiar held them in the deepest and darkest.
“Find her,” Thorn had requested of Saffron as they set out from the spring. “Tell her I’m here. I’m on my way.”
The fairy had hovered over the nodding grass, her lavender eyes locked on the Kaem, skinny limbs trembling. The baernavë. Saffron feared the touch of baernavë, and somewhere inside that stone corpse fay-sized cages waited, empty, insatiable, ready to drink her energies dry. Her tiny fists had screwed tight and her delicate mouth pursed as she mustered her courage. She whisked off, flying low over the heather, fading from sight as she neared the Kaem.
Low in the giant’s throat, where its chest melded with the earth, a vast hole gaped, as if the ancient creature’s heart had been ripped out. If tunnels opened elsewhere on the Kaem’s flanks, they were well hidden and too small to be of any use.
Bones littered the slopes leading up to the cave’s mouth. A narrow, rocky trail climbed down into the sprawling camp. When Thorn had fought his way into the Kaem before, only a few dozen ogres had emerged to stop him. But now?
Several thousand may have marched south to meet Kethlyn on the field, but thousands more remained. They milled, arguing over scraps of meat, brawling over space. Dust rose from what looked like an arena. Circling it, ogres brayed and shook fists. Importantly, they were not in battle formation. They did not know they were being watched.
And why should they care? What fool would oppose so many on their own ground?
Even
with the help of the Regulars, it would be a feat just reaching the cave mouth.
“My Thorn!” Saffron manifested inches from Thorn’s face, so sudden and bright that he cried out and ducked. “I found her! I know where she is!”
“She’s alive?”
Light beamed joyously from the fairy’s face. “The cavern is warded. I could not approach her or speak to her, and I don’t think she saw me. But she looked well. Chained to a wall, but still strong.”
“Rhian?”
Her light dimmed a fraction. “I didn’t see him. But our Carah shares her prison with a dozen others. And … there’s a gate. Of baernavë. We’ll need to find the key.”
Thorn glanced to his right. Laniel peered at him through the scraggly branches of a heather shrub and gave the nod.
“Lead us to her,” Thorn told the fairy. “We’ll follow your light.”
~~~~
34
Rhian hadn’t moved in hours. He appeared to be lying on his side, back pressed to the wall of his alcove. The torchlight shined on the top of his head and one outstretched arm. His chains drooped slack. They no longer shifted or clinked with slight adjustments of his body.
Across the mountain of bones, Carah mimicked his prone posture; only, her hand crushed her mouth, and tears leaked across the bridge of her nose and down into her hair. Hour after hour she watched, hoping, praying, pleading for a slight twitch of Rhian’s hand.
Shortly after the last feeding, he had crawled deep into his alcove. The darkness saved him from having to watch others eat. To draw out his torment, the ogres continued to give him water. But he hadn’t touched his cup today.
Three feedings ago, he’d been full of spirit. Frogtongue had swung the cauldron of mush in front of him. “So brave,” she’d taunted around her thick sticky tongue. “Four days? Seven? No matter. Dis naeni butcher dis ‘vedra to pieces.”
Boldly Rhian had lashed out with his foot, catching Frogtongue square in the shin. “Choke on my bones!”
The ogre had grabbed a fistful of his hair, and for an instant Carah feared Frogtongue meant to tear out his throat with her stubby tusks. “Soon. Soon dis brave ‘vedra be shit on dirt. Not’ing more.” Frogtongue flung him against the wall and while he watched, she upended the cauldron, pouring the rest of the mush on the floor, just out of reach. The sentries trod through it, spreading trails of lumpy liquid around and around the mound of bones.
Long after Frogtongue departed, Rhian had stared at the wasted food. A sound like a sob burst from his mouth, then he pulled himself up the wall and paced. When his chains pulled taut and turned him, he paced the other way. Lightheadedness swayed him. Hunger pains doubled him over. “Eejit,” he muttered. “Don’t forget … eejit.”
Carah had never loved him more than in that moment. His stubborn defiance. Though, she couldn’t discern why he berated himself. Did he call himself an idiot for attacking the ogre? For throwing his plate away altogether? What mustn’t he forget?
She asked him, calling softly across the oily, flickering darkness, but he didn’t reply. Didn’t even acknowledge her presence. Just paced and muttered until his spirit wore out and he sank against the wall and slept.
The day after, there had been no pacing, no bright moments of rebellion. Rhian had laid curled at the mouth of his alcove, eyes tight shut, lips moving incessantly. What did he need to tell himself? What did he need to remember? His head must’ve been swimming with hunger.
Don’t go mad, Carah wanted to tell him. She waited in horror for him to start gnawing off his own fingers.
And then today. Shortly after Rhian had crawled into his alcove to avoid sight of the food, Carah had seen the shadows shift. She’d thought he was emerging again to sit in his customary place beneath the torch, but it was his body sliding sideways along the wall, his arm unfurling across the stone.
And that was all.
He could be sleeping, Carah told herself. Sleep was the best way to flee pain. She pushed herself up and called softly, “Rhian, can you hear me? Wake up, Rhian.” The torchlight shivered, casting the illusion that he stirred.
This was it, then? He’d lie there until he faded away completely? “You’re not alone. Do you hear me? I’m here. Love?”
Nothing.
Carah bit her lip until it stopped quivering. He’d get up. Any moment he’d get up and fight a little longer. But no matter how long, how sternly she willed him to rise, he didn’t.
“Doc?” Jaedren’s voice was small. He shuffled from his own alcove and sat on his knees. His hands drooped lax at his sides. “I don’t feel so good. Am I getting the dysentery?”
The Ixakan shrugged. “Could be, kid.”
“Am I going to die like Rhian?” The question was flat with despair.
Carah snatched her tin cup and flung it at the boy. “He’s not dead! And you’re not sick. Understand?”
Ducking his eyes as if a bully had beaten him over the head, Jaedren nodded. He picked up Carah’s cup and hugged it to his chest as though it were a chalice of gold. She saw the fever flushing his cheeks, shining in his eyes. He stared listlessly at the floor.
Doc must’ve recognized it too. He looked the boy up and down, then turned away. With a burdened sigh he wrestled with his thoughts, then stretched out an arm and waved the boy to him.
Jaedren curled up against the old Ixakan. Doc laid a skilled hand to the boy’s brow, counted his pulse, then jostled him. “You’re strong, kid. Fight it now.”
“I’m scared, Doc.”
“I know, kid.”
“I want Mum.”
“I know.”
Carah smashed a hand over her mouth to stop the sobs from breaking loose. Mother’s mercy, don’t let Jaedren die too. Once Rhian and Jaedren were both gone, there would be nothing left for her to do but kick away her own plate. At least, if she was dead, she’d deprive Lothiar the pleasure of using her to torment Uncle Thorn.
Frogtongue shuffled into the cavern, soup cauldron swinging, ladle clutched like a mace. How could it be feeding time already? Carah had lain watching Rhian longer than she realized.
“Rhian!” she hissed. “Get up!”
No response.
Tin tapped. Chains rattled. Frogtongue spooned glop onto Carah’s plate, but she had no stomach for it. She let it lie at her knees, unacknowledged. Only the stillness in Rhian’s alcove commanded her attention.
“Drink it down, girl,” Doc said. “Or slide your plate to me. I’ll give it to the boy.”
“She’ll eat it,” Jaedren argued. “Won’t you, m’ lady? You’re not ready to die, are you?”
“No, dearest, I’m not.” She swiped up her plate. “I’ll not oblige these stinking pigs and turn on a spit, thank you.” Glaring at Rhian’s outstretched arm, hating him for surrendering, Carah shoveled the slop into her mouth. Her stomach soured, her throat tightened with angry sobs, but she lapped up every soggy turnip. Spite turned the gruel to glass in her belly.
By the time Frogtongue rounded the shelf and approached Rhian’s alcove, the tapping had grown quiet, replaced by soft slurping sounds.
“Where dis ‘vedra cup?” asked the water carrier.
Carah leaned around the ogreling’s legs and watched Frogtongue prod Rhian with her toes. He didn’t so much as flinch. Frogtongue stooped to put her head and shoulders into the alcove for a closer inspection. A rhythmic grunting that could only be laughter rumbled out. The ogre reached for the keyring on her belt.
Carah scrambled around the water-carrier. “Leave him be, he’s only sleeping!”
Frogtongue paid her no mind. She lifted Rhian’s wrists one at a time and snicked open the baernavë shackles, then hooked her hands under his arms and hauled him from the alcove like some grotesque midwife birthing a stillborn babe.
A shrill cry echoed across the cavern. Carah recognized her own voice, and she couldn’t make it stop. Even when the sentries leveled spears her direction, grumbling curses, she couldn’t stop. Startled bats launched into confused
flight and bashed against the walls. Doc and Jaedren pleaded with her to shut her mouth. Carah bit into the meat of her palm, but the shrieks of her sorrow erupted from her throat regardless.
Frogtongue hefted Rhian over her shoulder as though he weighed little more than a stick of dry wood. His arms dangled down her back, and his tangled hair reached almost to her knees. She carried him along the shelf, sauntering. Boastful of her prize.
“Nurganurk!” The water-carrier ran after her. In their guttural tongue he pleaded with Frogtongue on the rough-hewn stair, likely begging some of the choice cuts.
Frogtongue snarled something in reply, the water-carrier slumped in disappointment, and then the dead man moved.
At first Carah didn’t understand what she was seeing. Rhian’s hands came together in a fist and hammered Frogtongue in the spine. The pair of them tumbled, a heap of arms and legs, down the steps. Fire flared, thunder cracked, and Frogtongue convulsed on the floor.
The water-carrier staggered away in surprise. A tongue of lightning burst through his belly as he fled toward the tunnel.
Jaedren was on his feet, leaping and cheering. Doc tried to tug him down as the two sentries charged.
On his knees, Rhian flung out both hands. An ear-cracking wave of sound slammed into them, launching them up and over the mound of bones. Skulls, ribs, vertebrae peeled into the air and rained down, clattering across the stone.
One of the sentries lay still. The other struggled to push himself up again, but Rhian whispered, “Eshel,” and the ogre burst into flame.
“Key. Key,” he mumbled and wrenched the baernavë ring from Frogtongue’s belt. He reared back and tossed it. The ring glinted as it arched. It skidded to a clinking stop at Carah’s feet.
She twisted the locks on her shackles, fingers frantic. As soon as the chains fell, her body went rigid with the sudden flood of avë. She was weightless as a cloud, her lungs full to bursting. It was as if she had been trying to breathe underwater for days and now burst to the surface.