Ashok nodded stiffly. “Good hunting.”
“Wake us before you become weary,” Vedoran said. He lay down on the hard ground and propped his head on one arm. They were all asleep within breaths. As eager as they were for the challenge ahead, they wanted to be as fresh and alert as possible when the time came.
Ashok watched them all at rest, their faces slack. Sleep took the stress and wildness from their expressions, so that Ashok barely recognized them as the warriors he knew.
A memory surfaced, of the few journeys Ashok had undertaken to the Shadowfell with his father and brothers. There were no watches, no long marches across the open plain. They traveled only so far and did only so much as they could do without sleep. Sleep on the unguarded plain was as good as a death sentence, if you failed to hear the dagger coming for you in the dark.
Ashok stared down at the cave entrance. There was no movement, though he knew there were guards just inside the cave mouth. He would have to find a way to alert Vedoran to their presence, if his other companions didn’t detect them.
Restless, he stood and paced the camp. He went to the nightmare, tied to a cluster of kindling trees a few feet away. The beast’s hair appeared flat black now, with only a feathering of blue at the roots of his mane and tail. The heat had dulled enough that Ashok felt confident running his hand up and down the beast’s neck.
They’re all good, Ashok thought, Vedoran and the rest—warriors to equal any in the enclave. But his enclave had numbers in the caves. They knew where there was enough space to swing a sword, and where the passages narrowed so two shadar-kai couldn’t walk abreast. There was a reason they’d survived in the valley so long.
The nightmare’s ears twitched. He whickered and nudged Ashok with his body when he ceased the gentle rubbing.
“You’ve done your part,” Ashok said, “and have my thanks. It’s time for me to return the favor.”
He untangled the reins from the needle branches. The nightmare lowered his head, and Ashok removed the bridle and bit. The metal was hot in his hands.
“Go,” he said, slapping the beast on the rump. The nightmare whinnied in indignation and took off at a gallop across the plain. When the beast was almost out of sight, Ashok saw the flames burst from his mane. Streaks of fire cut the ground in the wake of his passage. Ashok watched until the flames disappeared.
He turned back to the camp. The others slept on, their dreams unfettered by the nightmare’s influence.
Some time later, Ashok woke Skagi and took his place. The ground was still warm from the heat of his body. Ashok closed his eyes, but he didn’t sleep.
He planned.
Natan woke in a sweat in his small chamber. His skin was hot as if flames had grazed him while he slept. Had he been dreaming, or was there vital portent he’d missed?
Cursing himself, Natan got up but went almost immediately to his knees by a small wooden altar, bearing only a candle and a dagger with a ruby set in the hilt. The weapon had been a gift, long before, from Ilvani. He touched the hilt and called for Tempus.
“Forgive me,” he said aloud. “I was weary and slept. I shall not be weak again. Show me your will, I pray you.”
Uwan had been the one to send him to his rest. Natan didn’t fault his leader for it; Uwan only meant to help. He could see that Natan had been fasting and holding vigil. He’d done so almost since the day Ilvani had disappeared, and the exhaustion was starting to take its toll on his body.
What Uwan did not understand was that Natan cared nothing for his own health. Wherever Ilvani was Natan sensed she suffered far worse. He would not be well until she came home.
“Tempus,” he prayed, and repeated his wish for the god to speak, to give him some sign that Ashok and the others walked the right path. Was the fire an ill omen or a promise of rebirth? “Tell me that this has all not been in vain.”
“Is it wise, brother, to chatter so much at your god’s mind that he forsakes all others for your entreaties? Isn’t it selfish?”
Natan gasped and clutched his chest. He didn’t dare look behind him for fear he might break at last, but the voice was so familiar and beloved he couldn’t dismiss it as a phantom.
He shifted on his knees and saw her, sitting cross-legged in the corner of his chamber. It was such a familiar pose when she came to see him that Natan almost wept. She looked exactly as she had when she’d left, her pale skin and garnet hair—the red he’d hated on himself but that suited her so well.
“Ilvani,” he said.
“You look terrible, brother,” Ilvani said. She pretended to sniff the air. “Have you been bathing?”
He chuckled. “This is what I’m reduced to when you’re not around to look after me,” he said. He wanted to go to her, but he was terrified that if he moved she would vanish.
It wasn’t truly Ilvani. Natan knew that, though he ached to admit it. It was prophecy, Tempus’s visions given a voice and a face that wouldn’t frighten or overwhelm a mortal. But Natan felt overwhelmed, and full of joy, hope. Surely Tempus would not be so cruel as to send him a vision of his sister if she were gone?
“You’re watching the wrong things, brother,” Ilvani said seriously. “You’re too much on your knees and not enough in Ikemmu. You’re missing it.”
“I can’t just sit by and not look for you,” Natan said. “How can Tempus ask that of me?”
“You see the fire,” Ilvani said, “but you have no idea how it shapes them. It may forge or destroy, save them or damn them. Why do you force them to choose one or the other?”
She sounded like the Ilvani that Natan remembered, the beloved sister with her mind in two worlds, though where or what the other was, no one knew. At times Natan thought it was a safe harbor for her mind, but at others it seemed a prison she’d created for herself.
He wondered if he should have told Ashok about his and Ilvani’s unique heritage. It did not matter. The others would tell him, if they felt he needed to know.
“Ilvani, can you tell me where you are?” Natan asked. “There are shadar-kai warriors seeking you. Can you feel their presence?”
“Yes,” she said. She stood up and walked past him.
“Wait!” Natan called as he jumped to his feet and went after her. She passed through the wall, a phantom. Natan fumbled with the door latch and ran out to the stairs.
She was already walking up the spiral, her long black cloak with its overlay of tiny chains clinking behind her. Natan followed her.
“Everything is turning,” Ilvani said.
“What do you mean?” Natan said. He felt dizzy looking up at her while they turned on the stair. “What’s turning?”
“Don’t you feel it, brother?” Ilvani said, scoffing and fluttering her hands impatiently. “You should be feeling them, every one. They will change everything, and you won’t stop to see it until it’s too late. Then the fire will come.”
“Ilvani!” Natan cried. “Tempus, what are you trying to tell me!”
Ilvani stopped so fast that Natan passed through her. He collapsed on the stairs, breathless, and looked up at her. The light shone through her flesh, and she was a specter with his sister’s voice.
“He will bear the burden of Ikemmu,” she said, and her voice reverberated off the walls, deep and angry. “The faithless will guide the faithful, but by then it may already be too late. You must look to your people.”
She tipped her head back and spread her arms. White wings burst from her spine and spread out behind her. She brought them down, and in a rush of air that Natan felt on his face, she took flight.
The tower steps disappeared, and Natan found himself floating in a formless void. The specter-angel flew above him, and as he watched she was joined by other winged folk, circling in an endless vortex of wings and light.
Natan stood up and stretched his arms out. “Ilvani!” he cried. But he knew she was gone. He watched the angels cavort in the sky beneath a glowing sun. Natan felt the heat on his face, so warm he began to sweat.
The memory of his dream came back to him then in a rush, and Natan knew what had woken him. He looked up; the angels flew higher and higher, toward the golden sun.
“Stop!” he yelled, but his voice was very faint. It barely touched the vast sky. “Come back! Don’t fly there!”
He screamed until his throat was raw, but it was all in vain. One by one the winged specters caught fire. The flames outlined their wings, and for a hopeless breath they were mighty phoenixes. Then the fire consumed them and turned their beautiful appendages to ash.
Bodies fell shrieking out of the sky. As they passed they reached for Natan, and he tried to grab onto them to stop their fall, but his hands passed through their flesh, and all he felt was the fire. His hands blistered, and he cried out in agony as they all perished before his eyes.
Natan awoke in his bed, sweating. He could still feel the fire on his skin. He stumbled out of bed, went to the altar, and turned to the corner where Ilvani had appeared. But he saw nothing, sensed nothing but an empty chamber.
Trembling and awash in horror from what he’d witnessed, Natan couldn’t find the strength to pray. He went to his bed, took the blankets off, and piled them in the corner of the room. He lay down and felt the cold stone floor start to calm him and cool the sweat from his body. His heartbeat was frenzied in his chest.
“Tempus,” he begged, “Tempus.” Over and over he said his god’s name. “Let that not be our fate. Let it not be. Let it not be.”
He slept, a dreamless stupor, but he did not see Ilvani again, or the winged specters.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
DOWN THE VALLEY IN SINGLE FILE,” VEDORAN TOLD THEM AS THEY prepared to leave. “Lean into the cliff wall if you lose your balance.”
“The wind is strong, especially near the top,” Chanoch said. “It almost plucked me off a couple of times.”
“I’ll take point, then Skagi and Cree, Ashok, and Chanoch watching our back,” Vedoran said.
“We should use our masks,” Ashok said. “The ones we made for the dust storm. If by some chance they do see us coming, they won’t know who or what we are.”
He looked to Vedoran for support. The shadar-kai considered then nodded. “Do it,” he said.
Ashok tied the dust-covered cloth across the bridge of his nose and pulled his cloak hood up so that only his black eyes were visible. Unless he spoke, no one in his enclave would know him, and none of them were expecting to see a dead son returned to his home. Still, considering what lay ahead of him, the protection seemed as flimsy as parchment, and as they proceeded down the valley, Ashok felt horribly vulnerable.
Tempus sees you, if no one else does, Ashok thought bitterly. At any moment he expected the warrior god to reach down and expose him for the traitor he was.
The wind was indeed vicious, and more than once they had to stop and crouch low to the rock to keep from being plucked off. But the farther they descended, the easier the way became, until they touched down on the valley floor.
Ashok’s heart pounded a dull, uneven rhythm against his ribs. The landmarks were so familiar. He knew exactly how far he was from his own chamber in the caves. Everything was the same; only Ashok had changed.
They weaved among rocks, keeping low and to the shadows as they crossed the stream and approached the cave entrance from the east. Ashok felt confident they wouldn’t be spotted. The guards were looking for threats on the valley ridge. They didn’t realize their domain had already been penetrated by enemies using their own stone staircase.
As they neared the mouth of the cave, Ashok carefully readied his chain. He kept the spikes taut so they made no sound. Vedoran drew his blade and motioned for Ashok to come join him at the front of the line. The others he motioned to stay a distance back.
Ashok came forward, and Vedoran whispered, “Stay at my back when we go in. Ten feet, no farther, until we see how many guards there are at the entrance.”
Ashok nodded and waited, while Vedoran darted past him and into the cave. He came in behind and heard the surprised cries of two guards, quickly stifled when Vedoran grabbed one of them from behind and covered his mouth.
Ashok grabbed the other and clamped a hand over his lips. He recognized both guards. Those men had the watch during the enclave’s sleeping time, and Ashok had often greeted them when he left on his journeys across the plain. They had been the last members of his enclave he’d seen before he left to hunt down the shadow hounds.
He dropped his chain and took out his dagger. Reversing the blade, Ashok struck the back of his guard’s skull with the hilt. The shadar-kai went limp, and Ashok let him fall to the ground.
As he sheathed his blade, Ashok heard a sudden crack. He fumbled and dropped the dagger, but Vedoran didn’t notice. He’d broken the neck of the other guard.
Vedoran went out and motioned for the others to join them inside the cave. He dragged his guard’s corpse over to Ashok’s unconscious one and dropped the body on top of him. Fortunately, he didn’t pause long enough to see that Ashok’s guard still breathed.
The passages ahead of them were lit by torches sparsely placed along the walls. They burned a low flame, casting just enough light to mimic the perpetual dusk of the Shadowfell. It was the gateway, the long walk in the dark.
Their greatest chance of failure lay in these twisting passages, Ashok thought. Initially, the tunnels were wide and tall enough for large groups to walk abreast, but the illusion of space soon faded. The deeper caves were designed to be like a maze, with so many dead-end passages and narrow halls that the uninitiated would quickly be lost and starve to death trying to find a way back to familiar territory.
Vedoran put them in line again, with himself and Ashok up front, Chanoch in the middle, and the brothers bringing up the rear. They proceeded down the long, wide passage, keeping close to the wall. Ashok could hear the echoing voices of his enclave drifting up from the deeper caves. Each time the voices came, Vedoran halted them to listen, but it was impossible to tell how close the voices were, and how many spoke. Ashok knew it must be driving Vedoran mad.
The fourth time they stopped to listen, Ashok put a hand on Vedoran’s shoulder. The shadar-kai turned and raised an eyebrow.
“They make no sound of alarm,” Ashok said. “For now, I believe we’re undetected.”
Vedoran nodded, but he was still unsettled. They marched on. The straight passage continued for a quarter mile into the rock before curving slightly to the west.
So it begins, Ashok thought, and watched the passage narrow drastically and split, offering tunnels in three different directions. Phantom voices babbled from all three.
“Which direction?” Chanoch whispered. “They all look the same.”
“Cree, we need a map of these tunnels,” Vedoran said quietly. Cree nodded and reached in his pouch for tools. To the rest of them, Vedoran said, “Take alive the next shadar-kai we encounter. We question them about our people, but if they make any move to sound an alarm, kill them.”
Skagi and Chanoch nodded eagerly. Ashok looked at the split in the passages. “This way,” he said, pointing to the left branch. “The voices seem to be louder coming from this tunnel.”
“How can you be sure?” Vedoran asked.
Ashok shrugged, trying to appear casual. “I can’t. But it comforts me to think we aren’t choosing at random.”
“True,” Vedoran said, and the others laughed quietly. “Are you ready, Cree?” he asked.
Cree’s deft hands sketched a chalk map on a piece of parchment. He folded it carefully and tucked it away. “Ready,” he answered.
They took the left passage and had no choice but to walk single file down the narrow tunnel. The ground sloped downward at a gradual angle, and the air grew colder the deeper they descended into the earth.
Ashok judged they had another mile of tunnels to navigate before they got close to where they needed to be. The enclave had no formal dungeons—only graves had ever been needed to accommodate their enem
ies—so if the captives were alive, they would be in the food room, Ashok reasoned. It was a secure chamber with a dedicated guard, the place where live animals were caged for slaughter. Unfortunately for the rescue party, it was also snarled in the most heavily-trafficked areas of the enclave. It would be nearly impossible for them to get there undetected.
They reached another intersection, and Vedoran halted the group. Two passages forked left and right, joined by a hole halfway up the wall. The hole was large enough to accommodate a shadar-kai, but the tunnel was more a chute than a passage, with sheer walls on all sides.
“Any intuition about this one?” he asked Ashok.
Ashok stepped forward and pretended to examine the three tunnels. He stood beneath the hole in the wall and sniffed.
“This is a waste chute,” he said, “which means there’s at least one level of tunnels above this one, probably more.”
“In other words, we’re not dealing with a small band of shadar-kai hiding in a cave,” Vedoran said. “This is a functional enclave that’s been here for some time.”
“I’d say at least ten years,” Cree said. “The tunnels vary in size, and the clearing done in some of these passages was by living hands, not age.”
“Are you sure?” Vedoran asked.
Cree nodded. “They’ve made themselves a fortress here,” he said. “It’s not as intimidating to look at as Neimal and her wall guards, but it’s defensible. Depending on how much food they have stored here, they could live comfortably hidden for a year or more, if they had to.”
“But that’s good news,” Chanoch said. His face split in a relieved grin.
Vedoran shot him a look of incredulous disgust. “How do you see it as such?” he demanded.
“Tempus knew a large force couldn’t penetrate the caves,” Chanoch said. “Uwan sent us, and Ashok, who saw the way into the valley. Don’t you see? It’s all come together. We’ve done right. Praise to Tempus and Uwan,” he said, his voice echoing down the tunnels.
Vedoran’s expression darkened. He stepped up until he was in Chanoch’s face. “Tempus and Uwan be damned, and if you don’t be silent, pup, you’ll stay here with the corpses,” he said. “Alert anyone to our presence, and I’ll make you one of them.”
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