“You remember how Halan used to collect gull’s eggs?” Adham asked next to him. “Gods good and wise, what I wouldn’t give for some of his cooking, something to cut the taste of salt fish from my tongue.”
“Don’t remind me,” Leitos said, belly growling, even as his heart ached for the loss of the meditative Brother, and so many others.
After looking at the fall of the shadows, he estimated they had a while yet to watch their prey. Sumahn and Daris would be along soon. Leitos settled into a more comfortable position, and fought the allure of dozing off in the dappled sunlight.
As expected, it had taken them the better part of a fortnight to sail from Yato to Witch’s Mole, where they would gather all the supplies the Kelren attack had forced them to abandon. The problem was, a good many sea-wolves still inhabited the island, those who had been left behind when their crewmates fled for Yato with Adham, Ba’Sel, and several more Brothers chained in the hold of the Night Blade.
In the meantime, the Kelren castaways had been busy building a flotilla of rafts. Ulmek was of the mind that none of the sea-wolves could be allowed to leave. As Kelrens had long since sided with the Bane of Creation, no one who had sailed from Yato disagreed. But killing so many slavers with little more than thirty warriors, would be no small feat.
Growing impatient, Leitos wormed about in the sandy soil and leaf litter. For the tenth time that morning, he counted the figures moving about on the sickle-shaped beach. Even at a distance, the sea-wolves looked brutal. Besides wide-bladed cutlasses at their waists, men and women alike wore only grubby white or black breeches that ended at the knee. To the last, their sun-darkened skin was covered in vulgar brands. The more brands a Kelren displayed, the greater their prowess and station within their clans.
“There’s nearly two score, now,” Leitos said. “Most are staggering drunk.”
“I would’ve thought they had run out of whatever swill they drink.”
“I wish it would’ve killed them,” Leitos allowed. “If anything, it seems to only make more of them.”
“Many more, if the number of rafts they have already built means anything,” Adham said, gray eyes narrowed.
Leitos checked the angle of the sun again, then the slope behind them. He tried to ignore a tickle of unease. “Sumahn and Daris should’ve been here by now. I think we—” he cut off when Adham’s eyes flared and he thrust a quieting finger against his lips.
Slowly, Leitos faced the beach, and cursed softly under his breath. A small band of Kelrens was heading their way. Two women, their breasts bare and swaying in time with their footsteps, and three brutish men, their raised scars rippling over corded muscle.
An apprehensive silence fell over Leitos and Adham. If they were found, all hope of surprise was lost.
The Kelrens came closer. By their rude banter and rowdy laughter, they were unaware that any foes lurked nearby. A wary eye could change all that in a moment.
“They outnumber us by a fair bit,” Adham said in a hush. The longer he observed the approaching raiders, the harder his expression became. “I give us fair odds. Are you ready to fight?”
“We can’t,” Leitos warned, considering the wider mission. “If we give ourselves away, they will have the advantage.”
Adham’s scowl deepened. “Aye, I suppose you have the way of it. Still, if they get much closer, we’re not likely to have much say in the matter.”
“And there’s no way to escape without being seen,” Leitos added. Once more, he cast a furtive look up the boulder-strewn hillside behind them for any sign of Sumahn and Daris. He saw no hint that they might be near.
As the Kelrens came closer, Adham’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his fingers curled slowly around the sword hilt jutting from the plain leather scabbard at his waist, his knuckles going white from the force of his grip.
Leitos wanted to join the battle, felt that need in his racing blood, but he knew they could not. “Father?” he hissed.
Adham didn’t seem to hear. “Kelrens,” he growled, “are a cruel race, men and women both. They are truly wolves of the sea. Even discounting being slavers, they are given to all manner of rituals and rites too vile to speak of. They were the first to join with the Faceless One against humankind.” His teeth ground together. “It is they, Leitos, who brought us in chains to Geldain, they who handed us over to the slavemasters on the quays below the walls of Kula-Tak.”
One of the women suddenly raced ahead of the others, laughing drunkenly. A few strides from Leitos and Adham’s concealment, she turned toward her companions and called out. One fellow pushed back his ratty hair so he could get a better look at her, making the bits of metal and bone hung in the long strands click and tinkle. A leering smile parted his tangled beard.
“What are you waiting for?” the woman shouted hoarsely, grasping her teats and giving them a jiggle. She was so close Leitos could make out the countless scars running down her lithe back, freakish designs all flowing together into a gruesome mass. When she slithered out of her breeches, he saw those scars also covered her bare arse.
“They’ve not the decency the gods gave swine,” Adham snarled. By now he had drawn his sword, and looked eager to put it to use. If it came to that, Leitos knew he could not hinder him. He would join his father, and they would fight or die, as true Izutarians.
The Kelren joined the naked woman, and they tumbled to the sand, tearing and biting at each other, as if they meant to kill one another. A short knife taken from her discarded breeches flashed into the woman’s hand, and she sawed through the rope holding up his breeches. With a deft tug, she disrobed him. A moment more, he had her face down, and was taking her from behind. She squealed and clawed as the man’s loins slapped against her backside. All the while, he kept a careful eye on the knife she still held. Behind them, a similar scene unfolded, save that the second Kelren woman had invited both remaining men to enjoy her flesh.
A flush crept over Leitos’s cheeks as he watched, but he was unable to look away. Where he had killed many enemies, he had never seen the lovemaking his father had rarely spoken of. But was it lovemaking? It seemed more akin to the savagery Alon’mahk’lar foisted upon human women.
“Gods be damned,” Adham breathed.
Leitos’s eyes swung back to the nearest sea-wolves.
They had abandoned their crazed rutting to stare straight at Leitos and Adham. The hiss of a flashing arrow passed overhead, and Leitos flinched at the muted thud of the shaft driving through the woman’s shoulder. She reared up with a pained curse, bucking off her lover. She charged up the beach, knife held before her. Two more arrows struck. One jutted from her thigh, the second from her throat. Gagging, blood pouring over her lips, she wheeled slowly. A third arrow pierced her left teat, and she fell on her face, bloody teeth gnawing at the sand.
“Take them!” her lover snarled. Two arrows sank into his ribs as he tried to untangle the cutlass from his breeches. With a hitching groan, he fell.
By then Leitos was up on one knee, arrow nocked, bow bent. He fired at the two remaining men. One of them collapsed, pawing frantically at the shaft lodged in his eye. Two more arrows passed overhead. The last man went down, but the woman came on, the fletching of a shaft wagging between her breasts.
Leitos’s aim locked on her snarling face, not ten strides away, saw her lips parting to give a warning shout. Before she could make a sound, the bowstring rolled off his fingertips, speeding the arrow between her teeth and out the back of her head. She went rigid as a plank and collapsed.
“We have to hide them,” Adham warned, and burst from cover.
Keeping an eye on the Kelrens farther down the shore, Leitos joined him. They each dragged a corpse toward the brush above the tideline.
A rattle of stones signaled Sumahn and Daris coming down the hill. They didn’t need instruction, and quickly retrieved two more Kelrens. Leitos and Adham fetched the woman who had been closest to them.
Afterward, Leitos checked one more tim
e to make sure they had not been observed, then crawled out over the sand and used his hands to erase all visible blood and drag marks. It was a hasty job, but there was no help for it.
Sumahn signaled that they should head up through the boulders. Everyone took care not to heave against any of the boulders, as the soil beneath them had been undermined to allow for an easy rockslide. Together, the foursome climbed to a narrow crevice in the flank of the hillside. It was one of two remaining ways into the sanctuary not blocked by rock falls.
Once their tracks had been smoothed, and a few saplings placed to hide the opening, Daris used flint and steel to light a torch left behind from when the Brothers of the Crimson Shield still called this place home. The tunnel’s roof was low and strung with cobwebs, but the cramped space provided a feeling of security.
“Good thing we came along when we did,” Sumahn said. He had not smiled much since Nola lost her eye, and not at all when she insisted on journeying to Geldain despite her injury, but he smiled now. “The way things were going, you two were about to become Kelren playthings. I hear they play rough.”
“Are you two out of your minds?” Adham growled. “You fools almost gave us away. And then where would we be?”
Daris nodded at the sword clutched in Adham’s hand. “From what I saw, the way you were fondling that cleaver of yours, you looked a short step from giving yourself away. Besides, you are forgetting that they saw you, and were about to sound the alarm.”
“You fools could’ve at least given us a warning about what you intended,” Adham grumbled.
“Perhaps next time, old one,” Daris chortled, patting Adham’s shoulder as if he were a dotard. “Now, you be sure and stay close to us, so we can get you safely to a piping bowl of gruel.”
“Go on,” Adham snapped, for once sounding irritated with Daris’s jests about his age.
The foursome set out at a trot. Daris led the way, torch held high. After a short time, they reached the sanctuary.
Leitos’s memories of the last time he had seen the cavern fell over him in bitter waves. The same enemies had been after them before, but there had been many more Brothers then. Now there was only himself, Ulmek, Sumahn and Daris. For the first time since setting out from Yato, sharp blades of doubt slashed at his resolve. How can so few fight against a living goddess and her armies of demon-born?
Across the sanctuary, Ulmek was filling a waterskin at the small pool. At his back was a pile of bulging haversacks. Nearby, Damoc, Belina and Nola stood in quiet conversation. Despite the drab bandage wrapped about her head, Nola seemed hale and lively.
Leitos recalled Adham telling him that those who were washed in the Powers of Creation could heal faster, but he still remembered how Nola had looked in his arms, how her heart had fluttered weakly against his chest. He had been sure the grave was dragging her into its cold embrace, but she had fought back.
Far off to one side, Ba’Sel sat in the dust, rocking and murmuring, as usual. Ulmek had believed that if their fallen leader got away from Yato, and had a taste of his old life, the experiences might heal his shattered wits. Leitos saw no change in the man’s demeanor. Whoever Ba’Sel had been, the essence of him was gone.
Around them, the circular cavern lay under thick gloom, the only light coming from a couple of torches and a crack in the ceiling, which also fed a trickle of water into the pool. Openings dotted the walls around the chamber, but most were blocked with rock falls.
Leitos had always considered the sanctuary an austere home, but now there was a sad wretchedness about it, an air of long abandonment, despite that he and his Brothers had only been gone a short while. Splintered wood and torn blankets had replaced the bunk beds lining the walls. Doubtless, the sea-wolves had ransacked the place. Leitos glanced back at the fat haversacks near Ulmek. The Kelrens had apparently not found what Ulmek had come back for.
Four heads turned as Leitos and the others approached.
“I would ask for good news,” Ulmek said, “but your faces say you’ll not have any.”
“Not so,” Daris said, grinning ear to ear. “There are a few less sea-wolves to trouble us than when we landed.”
“Five, by my count,” Sumahn said, his gaze flickering to Nola. She gazed at him with one hooded eye. When he offered her an almost imperceptible smile, she seemed startled, then returned it, shy and out of sorts.
“Of course,” Daris continued, “that still leaves most of the Night Blade’s former crew wandering about, and they’re scattered across Witch’s Mole in four separate groups.”
“Probably some clannish rivalry,” Sumahn put in. “They’ll sail and fight together against a common foe, but leave them with nothing to do but guzzle wine and bugger each other, and rivalries crop up.”
“Five dead is a good start,” Ulmek mused. Ba’Sel would not have tolerated the news of attacking the enemy without a direct order, but Ulmek was a different sort of warrior. “We are too few to attempt four separate skirmishes, and we don’t have days to waste picking them off a few at a time. We’ll have to lure them all to one confined area, a place they are forced to defend with their lives, or die in the attempt.”
“Perhaps we should leave them be,” Belina suggested. “We have what you wanted, and they still don’t know we are here. We can sail to the mainland at nightfall, with none the wiser.”
“And fight them at some other time?” Ulmek shook his head. “I think not. Best to deal with troubles as they come, and not let them pile up at our backs to haunt us when we least expect them. No, we will rid Witch’s Mole of these invading bastards, and then sail for Geldain.”
Ulmek hunkered down over sandy area, and began sketching out the island and prominent landmarks. In an eager hush, he detailed his strategy, and Leitos found himself nodding with all the rest. It was a good plan, and suitably brutal, a perfect remedy for the likes of murderous sea-wolves.
Chapter 20
Ulmek had ordered Leitos to make a final search of the crown of Witch’s Mole, supposedly to make sure the Kelrens had not posted any lookouts. Maybe they had, maybe they hadn’t, but since Ulmek had only given him a mere hour to make a search that should have taken much longer, Leitos guessed Ulmek’s real intention was to give him a chance to visit Zera’s grave.
The wind blew steadily atop Witch’s Mole, but the hooting moans that the Singing Islands took their name from did not reach so high. Gulls and other seabirds performed a swooping, sweeping dance overhead. Within the hour, the sun would fall below the reach of clouds massing in the west. Leitos guessed the storm would break soon after nightfall.
He kept a sharp eye out, as he snuck through groves of slender trees and thick clumps of brush. So far, he had seen no sign of recent activity. In the short time he and the others had been absent, the island seemed to have reclaimed itself, erasing any evidence of man’s trespass. Of course, the gale that had blown up the night the Brothers of the Crimson Shield departed had probably played a large part in wiping Witch’s Mole clean, and apparently sea-wolves were not much for exploring.
Before he reached the clearing with Zera’s grave, the highest point on the island, he paused in the shade of tree whose branches and foliage bent to the east like green tresses, shaped so by constant sea breezes. When he saw Belina standing beside the rocky cairn, he did not know whether the flare in his chest was surprise at her presence, or annoyance that she had come at all.
After ensuring no one else was about, Leitos joined her side. He looked over the mounded heap of stones he and Ba’Sel had laid over Zera a year before. It was an ugly thing, not befitting the beauty she’d had in life, but the best they could give her.
“So this is where you buried my sister,” Belina said.
“How did you know?” Leitos asked.
“Sumahn told Nola and me.”
“Will your father and sister come here?”
“No,” Belina said. “Zera died to them long ago.”
“But not to you?”
“I didn�
�t come for her sake.” The way she was looking at him made him uneasy. “I came for you.”
He felt her gaze sinking deep, seeking things he might not want to reveal. Before she could look upon his secrets, he blurted, “I killed her.”
He moved away before she could respond. An ache had risen in his throat, and a queer burning blurred his eyes. Admitting what he had done to someone who did not already know brought back all those old pains. He found himself dry-washing his hands, as if to rid them of fresh blood. He stopped himself, swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, and was surprised to find wetness coating his cheeks. Here he was, a Brother of the Crimson Shield, weeping like a fool child.
“You shouldn’t mourn your enemies,” Belina said.
Leitos spun, and she took a hasty step back, fright widening her eyes. “I didn’t count Zera as an enemy. I loved your sister.”
Belina’s face twisted. “Are you mad? We cannot love such creatures. She was Na’mihn’teghul—a changeling!” The revulsion in her eyes beat against him, but he had nothing to say. “You really do not understand, do you?” she asked wonderingly.
Leitos shook his head. “Understand what?”
“Zera was born after my mother was taken into the Throat of Balaam and ravished by Alon’mahk’lar—maybe by one, maybe by many, over and over until their vile seed quickened in her womb. Damoc told me how my mother had been before, full of laughter and eager to serve our Fauthian masters. I was born after Zera, so I never heard my mother’s laughter. The woman I knew was broken. Before the clans rebelled, we Yatoans were taught that the change that came over our women had to do with coming into the close presence of our gods, the Fauthians. The loss of one’s self was considered a sure sign of being blessed, a sign of ascension. But they lied.”
To Leitos’s mind, the Yatoans should have seen through such lies. But too well he recalled how his fellow slaves had never questioned the chains they wore, nor pondered the lashes they received from the slavemasters. None, that was, except Adham, who had never forgotten the life he had known before his capture, and who had never ceased looking for a chance to regain his freedom. And when it seemed he would die in bondage, Adham had stood alone against the slavemasters. It had nearly cost him his life, but it had been a sacrifice he willingly made so Leitos could escape the cruel bite of iron shackles.
Heirs of the Fallen: Book 04 - Wrath of the Fallen Page 11