by Phil Tucker
Annara looked up at Acharsis, who could only shrug. He’d never seen Jarek react like this. In fact, his memories of Jarek were the opposite: Jarek striding through crowds of Athites drenched in blood, roaring his defiance and laughing as he dealt ruin upon their enemies.
“Are you under attack?” asked Acharsis. “Can you sense spirits or demons around you?” He tried to think of which ritual to enact. What did he have in his pack that could help?
“I’m all right,” Jarek said at last, rising to his feet. He wiped his arm across his mouth, then stooped down to pick up his hammer. “No demons. Or, if it is one, it’s an old one that lives inside me.”
“When were you last cleansed?” Acharsis asked softly.
“No cleansing has ever helped.”
“Well, I know how that goes.” Acharsis sat back on his heels. “How many were there?”
“Including this one? Six. But three ran. They’re cowards.”
“How did they find us?” Annara also rose to her feet. “In the dark?”
“The bastards can smell a meal a dozen miles away,” said Jarek. “They must have crossed our trail and followed us. Waited till now to attack.”
“Oh,” said Annara, hugging herself. She was staring down at the beast. It was a dark hillock in the night, like a monstrous hyena. “But it spoke. I thought they were supposed to be mindless demons?”
They began to walk back to their camp. Now that the fight was over, Acharsis felt nausea rise within him, felt his whole body shaking. “They don’t really speak. They just copy the last things they heard. Repeat them.”
“So, those words - they were -?”
“Yes,” said Jarek. There was still a tremor in his voice. “The last things their previous victims said.” He spat. “They approach in the forms of men, talking and sowing confusion. When they’re close enough, they shift back into their true forms and attack.”
Acharsis moved over to the horses. They were snorting and struggling against their hobbles. He offered a grateful prayer to Ekillos for having remembered to hobble them. Well, not remembered, exactly; the idea had come to him as Ekillos’ gifts sometimes did. It had felt right, and it had saved them hours of chasing the horses across the steppe.
“There, there,” he whispered, stepping in close and patting the horse’s flank. It flinched but allowed him to soothe it. “It’s over. They’re gone. They’re gone.” He stroked its warm hide and realized that the beast was giving him comfort as well, through its clean smell, its bulk, and its strange combination of strength and delicacy.
He looked over to where his two companions were standing. “We should move camp. The horses won’t settle with these corpses around.”
“I won’t settle, either,” laughed Annara. It was dangerously close to a sob. “I can’t get their words out of my head. And that laughter – that hideous laughter.”
Acharsis undid the hobbles one by one, handing the reins to the others, then placed his saddle on his horse’s back, and together they began to walk into the night. Bit by bit, the shakes faded away; the nausea left him.
“You’ve fought them before, Jarek?”
The silence of the steppe was unnerving after the fury of battle.
“Yes.” For a moment, Acharsis thought he’d leave it at that; then he sighed. “A pack of them trailed me and a… a friend for a week once. I had to kill them all before I was free of them.”
They walked on in silence. Acharsis could tell Jarek was struggling to say something. Finally, he came out with it.
“They killed her on their first attack. Every attack thereafter, I heard them mimic her last words. That was the worst of it. Hearing her plead and then scream in the darkness, over and over again.”
“Oh, Jarek,” whispered Annara. “I’m so sorry.”
“They left off after I’d killed half of them.”
Acharsis had never heard Jarek sound so grim.
“But I tracked them. I killed them one by one, till they were all gone. I couldn’t stand the thought of her voice calling out in pain and terror, alone in the dark, like an uneasy ghost.”
Acharsis didn’t know what to say. As the son of Ekillos, he knew that those who had been killed by lakhar were doomed to walk the earth as uneasy spirits. Did Jarek know that as well?
This wasn’t the time to bring it up.
He tried to imagine that experience, hunting lakhar alone at night, but couldn’t. If he’d still been friends with Jarek, he might have tried to acknowledge the man’s pain, his need for vengeance. But he wasn’t. He didn’t have that right, that allowable intimacy. So, he bowed his head and trudged on alongside his horse, exhausted and bereft and alone.
The heavens were glorious the following morning, with vast clouds slowly drifting toward the distant Aloros Mountains, each a towering anvil of cream tinged with buttery yellow, as ponderous as a dying god’s dreams. The steppe was dappled with their shadows, the endless plain of grass proving the perfect canvas on which they could paint their passage.
The humps of the dead lakhar were barely visible behind Acharsis, Jarek and Annara when they mounted up. The soreness in Acharsis’ legs and ass was now compounded with a wretched stiffness that made the thought of riding all day a trial. Sitting up gingerly in the saddle, he gathered his reins and turned to regard the dead monsters. They were small hillocks in the grass, their hirsute shoulders and flanks plainly visible, dappled with gold and brown. The buzzards had already settled on them, and their heads were working deep into the monsters’ sides.
Acharsis grimaced and urged his mount forward, following Annara and Jarek. None of them had rested well, and as he lay there beneath the stars all night, he’d sensed that his companions were awake as well; only when dawn was approaching had he finally drifted off to sleep.
The trail they were following was barely discernible, but Acharsis was able to divine the passage of the raiders from subtle hints. A dozen horses couldn’t pass through such even grass without leaving broken blades and churned earth that were plain to those with an eye to see them. Yet, as the morning wore on, the trail began to curve back toward the right, a huge arc that soon had them turned around and the peaks of the Aloros once more before them.
Jarek pulled back on his reins. “Hold on. Are you sure you’re reading the trail correctly?”
Acharsis tried to slide down from his saddle and instead nearly collapsed to the ground. The insides of his thighs felt as if they’d been beaten with rods. Hissing, he crouched over the ground, parting the grass to reveal the horses’ tracks. They were faint, but clear.
“Yes,” he said.
Annara leaned over, staring at the prints. “How old are they?”
Acharsis rubbed his palm over the dirt. “Hard to tell. We’ve not had rain in some time. But I’d say a day old, at least.”
“Then we need to go faster.”
Acharsis stood with a groan. “Any faster and I’ll shiver apart at the seams.”
“You’re not that old,” she said. “You talk as if you’re already an elder.”
“This horse is starting to make me feel like one,” he said, pulling himself back up onto the saddle. “It’s an instrument of torture. No wonder nomads are always in a bad mood, if they have to ride these blasted animals all day.”
The steppe undulated before them like the Khartis Sea, great, shallow swells of land a mile long. Acharsis squinted at the horizon as they pounded along, searching for black flecks that might mark out their quarry.
Evening was falling when Acharsis finally made them out. They’d circled back in a huge loop, returning almost all the way to the edge of the steppe. He’d begun fearing they’d have to hunker down for another night when he rode to the top of a higher swell of land and saw a camp a couple of miles away.
“Back,” he hissed, sawing his horse’s head around and digging his heels into its side. “Down!”
The others obeyed immediately, and in a matter of moments they had galloped several hundred yards back
down into the shallow declivity.
“What is it?” Annara’s voice was breathless with hope. “Did you see them?”
“Yes, and with a little luck, they didn’t see me. A couple of miles away.”
“A full camp?” asked Jarek.
“No. Two tents, each maybe big enough for a dozen individuals. Horses, of course. No livestock.”
Jarek nodded. “A raiders’ camp. So, they never met up with their tribe.”
“What are they doing?” asked Annara. “Planning another attack?”
“Possible,” said Jarek. “Maybe they want to capture as many prisoners as possible before they head deep into the steppe.”
“Or?” she prompted.
“Or…” Jarek trailed off, uneasy. “You suspected that that leech, Yesu, might have been behind the raid, correct?”
Acharsis grimaced. “Possibly. But he lost three guards in that fight and was wounded as well.”
Annara hesitated. “Perhaps.”
“Either way, we’d best get a better sense of what we’re up against,” said Jarek. “Creep in close to see how many raiders, how long they’re planning to remain at that spot, and so forth.”
“When?” asked Annara.
“Now,” sighed Acharsis. “We need to act fast. If we have to, we’ll attack tonight.”
Jarek nodded. “Agreed. Acharsis, lead the way.”
Their efforts to avoid notice more than tripled the distance they had to travel. Acharsis led them along the shallow bottoms of the swells, dismounting every so often to creep up to the top and gaze toward the distant camp. They approached in much the same manner a falling leaf drifted down from a tree, slipping from side to side while coming incrementally closer to their destination.
Almost two hours later, he crawled back down from the last rise and looked to the others.
“This is as close as we can ride. We’re about a quarter of a mile away. We’ll have to go on foot if we’re to get any closer.”
Annara reached out and touched his arm. “Did you see him?”
“No. I think the prisoners are being kept in one of the tents. At this distance, though, it’s hard to be sure.”
Jarek rubbed his bearded jaw. “Athites, for sure?”
“I think so. I’m going to creep in as best I can. You two wait here. The odds of our being spotted will only be higher if we all go.”
Jarek nodded, and a second later, Annara did as well.
“All right.” Acharsis dropped into a squat, his knees popping, then straightened with a grimace. “Wish me luck.”
He left the others behind and quickly slithered over the top of the ridge, hurried down the far side and then ran bent over to the left, where the ground rose again. In such a manner he approached, always obliquely, hurrying until he could get no closer without being seen, and then he lowered down into a crawl and inched his way up to the top of the final rise.
The camp was only a few hundred yards away. The great circular tents were the color of spoiled milk, with colored triangular flags flapping off the guy lines. All the flaps were closed. A crowd had gathered at one side of the camp, where half a dozen death watch guards were standing in a tight knot, arms crossed, clearly waiting for something.
Acharsis’ heart sank, and he lowered his face to the grass. Damn it all up Nekuul’s netherhole, he thought as his energy and determination drained out of him.
Lifting his face once more, he saw a tent flap open and Yesu himself emerge with two of the raiders. Yesu turned once he was amongst his men and bowed. The bandages on his brow and arm were conspicuously absent. The raiders returned the gesture, then turned and gave a signal.
The flap of the other tent was opened, and Elu and two others were brought out. They weren’t bound in any way, but Elu’s face appeared battered, and he walked with a pronounced limp.
At the sight of Yesu, Elu gave a cry that carried thinly to where Acharsis was lying. The young man ran forward and dropped to his knees in gratitude, then spoke a rush of words to the leech.
Yesu gazed down at Elu with a cold smile, and Acharsis felt a knot of fury as he heard Elu’s words peter off. Yesu said something, then the guards moved forward and clasped Elu’s arms. The young man began to struggle and was dealt a blow to the head.
Acharsis felt a mad desire to run forward, blade in hand, and cut his way through to the boy, to roar his defiance and give his life in a mad rush; to, at the very least, reach Yesu and exact his vengeance before he was killed.
But that was madness. He’d not even get to the camp before they dropped him with arrows.
Helpless, he watched as Elu was forced to march before the guards. Yesu bowed one more time to the raiders, exchanged some final words, then turned to follow his men. Their wagons would be waiting for them on the road.
“Damn it,” hissed Acharsis, watching Elu go. Impotent fury burned within him, combined with a galling shame at having been duped by such a sniveling worm as Yesu. He remembered the man’s simpers and smiles and felt a black, crackling hatred.
Left with nothing else to do, he turned and crawled back down the rise and made his way to the others. They were standing alongside the horses, waiting tensely, and at the sight of him, Annara started forward, her hope bright in her eyes.
“Yesu,” said Acharsis. “Yesu’s taken Elu. It’s over. We’ve failed.”
Chapter 5
Annara’s face underwent a rapid change of expressions. First came incomprehension, then terror, then fury and refusal. She stepped up to Acharsis and beat her fist against his chest, a single blow that seemed to hit his spirit and not his flesh.
“What do you mean, failed? He’s there! All we have to do is take him!”
“Annara,” said Acharsis, raising both hands, palms toward her. “He’s been taken into the empress’s death wagons.”
“So, we take him back out!” She whirled on Jarek, who stood frowning and not meeting her eyes. “We saw those guards die. They are not demons, not spirits! And Yesu – well, he may be a master of Nekuul, but he’ll die like any other.”
There was silence then, but for the blowing of the wind and the soft lament of the grasses whispering to each other.
“What? You fear a dozen guards more than an entire tribe of raiders?”
“Annara,” Acharsis tried again. “Yesu could raise every corpse in his wagons. It would drain him badly, but in a matter of moments we would be up against - who knows? Some thirty of the dead?”
“So, kill him first. Kill him before he can call on Nekuul,” said Annara.
“We’d have to burn his corpse,” said Jarek, still staring at the ground. “To stop him from being raised in turn and questioned. And those of all the other guards.”
Annara was shaking now, her eyes feverish. “So, we’ll burn them.”
“If we manage to kill Yesu first, and if we also manage to kill his guards; if we then burn their corpses and save Elu, we would have to run and never look back. Irella would stop at nothing to avenge her master. The dead would follow us to the ends of the earth. There would be no escaping them.”
Annara’s laugh was just shy of a sob. “I had no intention of returning to Eruk. So, we flee.”
Jarek scratched the back of his head. “I agreed to save Elu from a tribe of nomads. Not to kill masters of Nekuul and bring myself to Irella’s attention.”
Annara stared at him. Still, the massive man refused to meet her eyes. “And you, Acharsis?”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said. “Yesu is -”
“I know exactly what I’m asking. But perhaps I didn’t know the quality of the men of whom I was asking it.” Her voice was pitched low. “Look at you both. What happened to the men you once were? Jarek? Will you truly abandon me now?”
A single vertical line had formed between Jarek’s brows. “She’d want to know who killed her priest. She’d pick up my trail. Smell the scent of Alok’s passing in the air. She would follow that right back to me. She’d kill me
and raise me as one of her undead lords.”
“Acharsis?”
He groaned and pressed his thumbs against his eyes, then lowered himself into a squat. “For almost two decades, I’ve avoided Irella’s empire. I’ve haunted the farthest reaches of the known world, right to the very edges, where men live like beasts inside caves, all to avoid Irella’s gaze. To avoid tempting death a second time.”
“Yet, here you are,” she said. “You came back. Why?”
His pulse beat dully in his ears. “To see you. To apologize to Jarek.”
“And why now?”
Acharsis looked away, across the swells of grass. He didn’t know. Something as primal and vast as a tidal force had pulled him across the face of the world, back to this land he’d foresworn.
“My business had failed,” he said at last. “These past five years, I became a merchant, an investor. I did well for myself. Built a fleet of four boats. Things were going well - right up until they weren’t. I lost my ships. My funds ran dry. My business closed. So, I thought the time was propitious for a visit.”
He couldn’t meet her eye. Instead, he stared fixedly at the grass.
“Don’t lie to me, Acharsis. I know you too well, even after all these years. No business of yours would ever simply fail. Not with even a ghost of Ekillos still thrumming in your veins.”
He thought of the Wind Cutter, his fleetest ship, and how he’d sent it into the frigid north on a foolish journey of exploration. It had never returned. The Good Love, taken by pirates when her young captain had strayed from the shore. An accident, surely, but who had hired that captain? Both the Emerald Eye and the Golden Faun had been seized by his debtors when he could hold them off no longer. Not that he’d tried.
Acharsis looked up at her defiantly. “All right. So, perhaps I lost interest in playing merchant and made some mistakes. What of it? My attention has always been fickle.”
“That, I know only too well,” she said coldly. “My point is this: you were brought here for a reason, a purpose you can’t even divine. And now that you are being shown your path, you shy from it like a virgin at her husband’s door. Are you blind? Don’t you see the hand of the gods when they direct your steps?”