They passed through the flames and landed in the heart of the fire rings. Ashok could hear the triumphant cries from the other circles and see shadar-kai shadows dancing in the light. The men and women within his own circle bounded up and threw their heads back, screaming to the world above. Their clothing fire-blackened, the shadar-kai shed their garments and continued to dance naked, their feet always pounding the ground.
Ashok felt hands draw him up and into the dance. Bodies pressed together, slick with sweat, the heat unbearable but vital. They were in the heart of a forge.
Ashok let the shadar-kai pull his shirt over his head, strip away his armor until he was completely naked. The fire surged. Ashok shouted and danced with his people. They could be burned to ash, their skin seared off their bodies, but he’d never felt so utterly whole. He wasn’t being torn apart or cut to shreds with a blade.
He was Ashok. No: he was shadar-kai.
When the flames burned low enough, they leaped over the fire and collapsed upon each other, screaming, laughing like wild children.
Ashok fell on his back and closed his eyes. He could hold no thoughts in his head, had no room for doubts or pain or fear. There were too many of them. His flesh touched that of another, and another, with nothing to distinguish him from the whole. No one could see him; nothing could hurt him. For all his arrogance, he’d never been stronger than he was there, at that breath in time.
He could see the others shouting to each other, kissing, dancing. He sat up, wanting to take it all in, to remember this feeling always.
A hand touched his shoulder. He turned to see Chanoch kneeling on the grass, naked, his eyes shining with tears.
“I came to tell you,” Chanoch said. Ashok could barely hear him. “I wanted you to see.” The young one’s voice broke. He pitched forward on his hands, exposing his back to Ashok. “I’ve been given the mark. Praise Tempus!”
Ashok saw the black blade, the symbol of Tempus tattooed down Chanoch’s spine. His surrounding skin was deep red and raw from the work, but Chanoch’s body quivered with rapture.
Praise be, Ashok wanted to say, but he stopped before the words reached his lips. He touched Chanoch’s shoulder instead. He could hear the young one weeping.
Skagi and Cree found them sometime later. They were similarly adorned with the black swords, and though they did not weep as Chanoch had, both brothers wore the rapture on their faces. Ashok could feel the power radiating from them, the wholeness.
Ashok caught his breath. All around him, he saw the black tattoos, the warriors in training who had taken their oaths, the final steps that would bind them completely into service of Ikemmu and their leader. The swords were everywhere, yet Ashok’s skin bore no mark except the flames of the nightmare. He stood out from the rest, a pale blemish among the joyous celebration. No one spoke of it. They accepted him as one of their own, but suddenly, Ashok felt cold. The fire couldn’t touch him. He was a creature apart.
He turned, looking for an open space, a place to breathe and escape the press of bodies, the reek of sweat and dirt. Stumbling, he made it to the shadows of the tower. He fell on his knees and vomited. Pressing his face against a patch of cool ground, he breathed in and out.
Footsteps sounded behind him, barely discernible above the noise of the celebration. Perhaps he heard them because he knew, before he looked up, who would be watching him.
Vedoran stood armed and fully clothed, which made Ashok feel horribly exposed. He stepped forward, his movements graceful, and handed Ashok a bundle that included his bone scale armor and the weapons he’d thoughtlessly discarded during the dance.
Ashok wiped his mouth, took the clothing, and with a nod of thanks began to dress himself. When he’d finished, he turned to face Vedoran, who watched the celebration dispassionately.
“They form the circles on the eve of every long journey undertaken by the shadar-kai,” Vedoran said before Ashok could speak. “The ritual will last until the Monril bell, long after those making the journey have gone to rest.”
“An offering to Tempus?” Ashok said. “To ensure a successful mission?”
“A prayer for success, perhaps,” Vedoran said. “But mostly it’s a method of girding the soul for what lies ahead. We’ll be traveling on the open plain for many days before we reach the bog. Unless we encounter other dangers—and I pray we do—we’ll have no one but each other and the wind for company. The inactivity of a long march … ”
“We risk losing ourselves,” Ashok said. He remembered well his own solitary days on the Shadowfell. He’d sought danger for the same reason.
“The other races, especially the merchants who are used to long, monotonous caravan runs, mock us for creating such ceremony for what they consider an insignificant distance,” Vedoran said. He dipped his head, his lips quirking in some private amusement. “Your halfling friend would say as much.”
“How do you know Darnae?” Ashok said, his eyes narrowing. “Have you been following me?”
Vedoran shrugged. “I’ve been curious about you since we first met. I’ve wondered why you hide yourself away in ruined buildings and scribble on parchment, why you went after that shadar-kai in the tavern,” he said. “At first I thought you confronted him for amusement, but then I began to think it was something more.”
“Are you satisfied now?” Ashok said tersely.
Vedoran met Ashok’s eyes. They held each other’s gazes for a long breath. Neither spoke. Finally, Vedoran smiled again and went back to watching the shadar-kai dance.
Ashok started to walk away, but Vedoran grabbed his shoulder. Ashok resisted the urge to throw off his hand and merely turned to glare at the graceful warrior.
“Always remember exactly what you are and what you are not,” Vedoran said. “Otherwise, that’s where you’ll be left.” He nodded at the vomit-stained ground. “Weak and begging for guidance that will never come.”
Ashok reached up and calmly removed Vedoran’s hand from his shoulder. “May the gods, any and all, grant us success on this journey,” he said. “And may Vedoran lead us safely home again.”
Vedoran nodded. “Sleep well, Ashok,” he said. “Sleep dreamlessly.”
When Vedoran left Ashok he went to the trade district, to the small temple with the green-painted door. Traedis did not look surprised to see him.
“He’s lost to you,” the cleric said when Vedoran had finished telling him of Ashok. “Like so many others before him, he will take Tempus and Uwan into his heart. You must think of yourself now, Vedoran.”
“Uwan put me in charge of the mission,” Vedoran said. “There is still the possibility that I will be rewarded—”
“With what—more coin for the sellsword?” the cleric challenged. “Are you so blind that you truly think Uwan will give you power and esteem you above Ashok, who he believes is sent by the warrior god Himself! You must look beyond Tempus, Vedoran. There are other gods in Ikemmu.”
“And where do your gods live, Traedis,” Vedoran said. “In small temples or secret hideaways? Where is the glory in that?”
“Then help us,” Traedis said. “Join us, and as our numbers swell we will become a force that Uwan can’t afford to ignore. We can change things, Vedoran.”
In his heart, Vedoran knew Traedis spoke wisely. Uwan and Ashok were in each other’s thrall, and Tempus had a stranglehold on the city. But he would not deny his mission, not if it meant he could prove that he was just as capable—no, more so—as Tempus’s faithful. His pride demanded that he show Uwan and the rest that he could succeed without visions and whispers from Tempus to guide his hand.
“We will see,” Vedoran said. “If I return from this mission, and all goes as you say, then we will surely speak again.”
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
SIX DAYS LATER, ASHOK, VEDORAN, SKAGI, CREE, AND CHANOCH sat with their backs to a cluster of stunted kindling trees, which he’d learned were called Dark Needles by Ikemmu’s shadar-kai. Similarly, they had found no good u
se for the spiny trees but the fire.
The Dark Needles were covered in a fine film of white dust. When Ashok had passed through the portal outside the city gates and tasted the open air of the Shadowfell for the first time in a month, he’d thought it deliciously sweet. But for four days now, a dust storm had been ravaging the plain. When Chanoch had first sighted the roiling clouds bearing down on them from the west, they had tried to outrun the storm. When it had overtaken them at last, it had been an exhilarating moment for all. Ashok had reveled in the dust searing his skin, feeling alone in the sudden darkness, yet a part of the storm.
They had pressed on, traveling until they could see no landmarks and risked becoming hopelessly lost in the painful fog. The shelter they’d found under the kindling trees was paltry at best. White dust covered Ashok’s entire body. He could feel the grit in his mouth, his ears, and buried in the roots of his hair. Their food was soaked in dust, as well as their clothing and bed things. No fire could withstand the fierce wind, so their fingers were numb with cold, and their minds were slowly following.
For the fourth time that day Ashok drew his dagger from its sheath and laid it against his bare flesh. He wanted so badly to press down, to feel something other than the dust scratching his skin.
Vedoran had forbid them to cut themselves. They were weak enough, he said, from having to ration gritty water and eat stale biscuits instead of the fresh meat they’d planned on hunting. But Vedoran couldn’t see his companions in the dust storm. The only impressions they had of each other were the occasional bits of conversation shouted over the wind. At all other times, they were silent, waiting and praying for the storm to pass.
Ashok laid the dagger against his arm and contemplated the pain. Sometimes, it was enough just to imagine the sensation rather than to actually experience it. His imagination could make up a lot of ground, if he willed it.
But in the end, the whicker and snort from over his left shoulder stopped him. The nightmare, his reins tied to the kindling tree, was no more able to move around in the storm than they. The dust had dulled his mane to a faint blue glow, and his red eyes were the only thing clearly visible in the unnatural darkness.
Ashok would not cut himself. He would not make himself any weaker than he already was while he held the nightmare’s lead. Neimal had placed a compulsion on the beast to calm him, but Ashok knew such magic would only have a superficial effect on the nightmare’s nature.
The only reason he had not tried to win his freedom was a feeling Ashok had. He couldn’t explain it, but they were connected somehow, the nightmare and he, ever since the night the beast had first sent him dreams. The nightmare read his intentions, if not Ashok’s thoughts. The journey was important. The beast knew he would finally have the chance to kill and feast.
He felt one of the others nudge his arm and tensed. Cree was suddenly at his ear, shouting.
“We need to speak!” Cree yelled.
Cree pulled him forward, and Ashok saw the silhouettes of the others converging. Cree threw a blanket over their heads to block out some of the dust and wind. He heard the scrape of a sunrod against the ground, and bright light filled the confined space. Vedoran cupped and dimmed the glow with his palm.
They were five ghosts in the muted light. They’d improvised masks to cover their mouths and noses, but it hardly helped.
“We have to move on,” Skagi said. Ashok could see how the light carved deep hollows into the brothers’ faces. They fidgeted and plucked at the flapping edges of the blanket to hold it in place.
“We can’t risk moving now,” Vedoran said. “We stay here until the storm passes.”
“How long will that be?” Cree demanded. “We’ll lose a tenday if this keeps up.”
“Then we lose a tenday,” Vedoran said.
“That’s fine with us,” Skagi said. “And you can explain it to Uwan when we bring back the corpses of his missing people.”
“If we blunder off course in the storm we lose just as much time,” Ashok said.
“This isn’t a discussion,” Vedoran said, a warning in his black eyes. “We stay here and wait out the storm. Anyone who disagrees can keep his thoughts to himself.”
Beneath the dust, Skagi’s face reddened, but Cree laid a restraining hand on his arm before he could retort. The tension in the small space threatened to explode.
Behind them, the nightmare snorted and neighed. Distracted, Skagi looked at Ashok. “What’s wrong with the beast?” he said.
“It’s choking on dust,” Cree joked. But Ashok was listening. He held up a hand.
“Do you hear that?” he said.
“Hear what?” Vedoran said. “There’s nothing but the damn wind.”
Ashok waited, and eventually the sound came again: a deep rumble underlying the piercing wind. “It’s thunder,” he said. “The nightmare smells the rain. This storm’s about to be swallowed.”
Vedoran raised his mask and pulled out from their makeshift tent. He returned a breath later. “Ashok’s right,” he said. “I can smell it too. Put this blanket away,” he told Cree. “Be ready to move out.”
The thunder grew louder. They huddled under the shelter of the kindling trees, Ashok holding the nightmare’s reins. Lightning flashed, and for the first time in days, they had a view across the plain.
“Did you see that?” Chanoch cried.
“What was it?” Skagi shouted.
At that instant, a jagged bolt split the sky and poured into the trunk of the kindling tree. The electric charge threw all five of them to the ground, and the nightmare reared and fell on his side, screaming.
The rain came then, a driving torrent that turned the dust on their bodies to a pasty white mud. When Ashok could see past the lightning blindness and muck, the dust had cleared, revealing a path before them, and in the distance, a rising black mass. Shadows writhed at its edges, and the lightning seemed to spear from its heart.
“There,” Chanoch cried. “What is that?”
Ashok dipped his head back and caught the rain in his mouth. The water burned his throat. He spat on the ground.
“It’s the witch,” he said, wiping his mouth in disgust. “These storms are hers. She must have seen us coming.”
Lightning savaged the tree again, and the warriors scattered. Ashok grabbed the nightmare’s reins and heaved himself onto the beast’s back. He leaned forward so he could whisper in his ear.
“We need your flame,” he said. “Show the witch you aren’t afraid.”
The nightmare screamed into the darkness and fire raced up his mane. Ashok sat back from the heat. The nightmare whipped his tail and shot sparks into the air. The fire burned off the dust and the wet, sending steam clouds toward the sky. The beast paced forward and screamed again as if in challenge.
Vedoran and the others gathered close to the nightmare’s flanks. Lightning continued to play across the open plain before them, but the beast strained against the reins, eager to run into the storm.
“Let it go,” Vedoran instructed Ashok. “We march,” he told the others. “Stay close to the beast.”
Ashok eased his grip on the reins, and the nightmare obligingly sprang forward, his long strides forcing the other shadar-kai to run to keep pace. They moved toward the shadow mass.
“Come! Come and give us a kiss, witch!” Skagi cried out and raised his falchion to the sky.
“Tempus!” Chanoch yelled, his arms thrown wide.
Ashok could hear the others shrieking in wild abandon as they ran alongside the flames. Vedoran held his hand out to graze the fire and tilted his head back to let the burning rain kiss his cheeks. Laughter rumbled from his chest, and the skin stretched taut across his face like a mask.
They passed a cluster of boulders and the remnants of a streambed. A lightning bolt struck the rocks, exploding stone. Ashok felt the stings as the tiny shards embedded in his flesh. He felt the nightmare’s body quiver, but the beast didn’t break stride.
Ashok’s eyes burned from the h
eat and the pain. He kept his legs tight around the nightmare’s flanks, half-expecting to be blown off by the lightning. He tried to see ahead of them in the rain, but instead of growing closer, the shadows appeared to be moving away.
Ashok wrapped the iron-shod reins around his knuckles and pulled. The nightmare screeched a protest and bucked his hindquarters in the air. Thrown forward, Ashok found his hands suddenly in the middle of a fire.
Cursing, he pulled back and almost lost his balance. Cree reached up to steady him. Ashok nodded his thanks and yanked on the reins.
The nightmare reared again, but he slowed, and the rest of the shadar-kai realized something was amiss.
“What is it?” Vedoran demanded.
“It’s a trick,” Ashok said. “She wants us to think the shadows are her bog. Likely she’ll lead us off a cliff before she’ll show us the way into her domain. In this storm, we wouldn’t know any better until it was too late.”
Vedoran squinted into the darkness at the roiling shadows and the lightning all around. His jaw tightened. “You’re right,” he said. “Turn around.”
Ashok wheeled the nightmare and dug in with his thighs. The beast broke into a halting run, and the shadar-kai hurried to follow.
A deafening roar of thunder rolled across the plain. The nightmare screamed in answer, and so the shadar-kai screamed too and brandished their weapons as they charged away from the black storm. The rain pelted them, burned their skin, and slowed their steps in the mud.
The witch doesn’t realize what she’s done, Ashok thought as he listened to his pounding heart. She should never have stopped the dust storm. After their long journey, his soul was awake at last. The stone shards in his leg and the blisters on his hands were proof that he was still alive. They would come through the storm.
“Fly!” Ashok cried, and reached out to grasp the flames. “Fly and let us all burn!”
They emerged from the storm breathless and bleeding, on the verge of a vast swamp. The rain had stopped, and the air had a dense, saturated feeling. The bog itself seemed a quiet haven in the middle of the open plain, a paradise after the violent storms. There were only the faint sounds of bird and animal life penetrating the thick canopy of leaves, moss, and undergrowth.
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