by EM Kaplan
“Kill them all.”
Chapter 35
Gathering her sisters close together, then nearer still, Zunee embraced them not with her arms, but with the swirling dust. Howling and shrieking, the wind surrounded them with its coiling, ferocious tendrils. Watching their faces, from little Yanna to Lena and to Deni, she looked for signs of fear. But found none. The way they watched her—with a certainty that startled her—they seemed to know she was the storm, to feel her surrounding them.
They hugged each other, the youngest ones clasped in a net of their sisters’ arms. Enclosing them in its calm center, the maligna cradled them, keeping them safe from harm. Inside its arms, it protected them. Zunee bowed her head and closed her eyes.
She was the wind. Light as air. Strong as a devil. Without sand, she was the rain. Scooping up grains of earth in her hands, she fed her power, enhanced her fortitude.
Outside the unseen wall that kept them safe, the storm expanded—she expanded. Her layers of dust and debris grew. They swirled larger, taller, higher in the sky. She took the tent up, gathering all those who would harm them. The boy who had marred Lena’s face. The man who had punched Deni into blackness. Ashonti, who had nothing but evil intent and destruction in mind for her family.
Zunee looked down at her sisters’ bowed heads.
I will protect you.
Her sisters heard nothing. Her one good ear heard no sounds.
Only Zunee, within her mind, heard the screams of her enemies as they perished. High among the upper strata of the storm, she broke them, one by one, all at once, and then flung their bodies into the far distant corners of the desert.
Part 4
Buried
Chapter 36
Mel recognized Ott as soon as his hand pulled her from the river. She felt him through the touch of his skin and knew it could be only him. He took a second or two longer to realize that he’d pulled her from the river. When he saw who it was, he clutched her to his chest. His big arms banded around her, while her mud-covered face still dripped from the river’s dousing. Minutes passed and he didn’t let her go, which was fine with her. Despite the smell of the river that clung to her, that familiar savory aroma that was unique to him filled her up, a warm curl deep in her belly.
“Good Lord,” Jaine exclaimed. Mel lifted her face to see that her companion from Tooran was staring at the Uptdon River. “Look at it.”
Now Mel shifted in Ott’s firm grasp to watch the water behind her. Overflowing its banks somewhat, the river lapped at the sides with a familiar, deceptive rhythm. She found no sign of the poor people whom it had swept away in its ferocity. The water filled the bed full beyond the brim, just as gray and steady as it had been before the night the maelstrom had appeared and thrown them off their course. The current slid past them, smooth in parts where she could sense it flowed rapidly underneath the surface. However, as she scrutinized the embankment more, she found that the swift current bent the reeds—the rushes—against their growth pattern.
“What’s wrong?” Ott asked, before she had a chance to point it out.
Jaine said, “The whole thing is upside down. I mean, right side up.” At their blank looks, she tried again, “The river changed direction. It flows south now.”
Mel stared at the Uptdon’s current. What did it mean? All of it—the water, the fire in Tooran, the book about elementals, which had been swallowed up by the river’s muddy bottom when they’d crashed. Terrata, ignisius, aqua, and respirus. Earth, fire, water, and air, the four basic elements.
After explaining to a shocked Ott about the fire that had swept through Tooran, she began to think aloud. “This has to do with elementals,” she said. “I wish I still had that book. If I hadn’t lost it and the medallion in the river, we might have been able to know more. I’m sure of it.”
Jaine dug around in the mud-splattered pouch slung across her shoulders. “You mean this medallion?” She held up the ornate Mask pendant, its agamite stones glinting through the encrusted dirt. “I picked it off the ground after the first time we got stuck in the mud. Never let anything slip by, that’s what I always say.” She held it out to Mel, who took it but didn’t put it on.
“I won’t wear it,” she told them. “It’s not for me. I had it on while we were in Tooran, and I felt the fire raging through the city. When I wore this around my neck, the fire controlled me. Not the reverse. Vern said that certain objects could help a person to control the elemental. But I believe it has to be the right person.”
She went to Charl, who lay on the ground, and crouched down next to him. Taking his hand, she worked the agamite insignia ring off his finger. Nearly stuck on his knuckle, the ring had become a tight fit, and Mel had to struggle with it to try to avoid hurting him. At last it came loose, and she examined it. Solid agamite with a detailed carving of Pesca, goddess of the waters, a cresting wave in relief behind her flowing green hair. As Mel held the ring up to Ott and Jaine, Charl groaned and stirred.
“I think this might control the water elemental that changed the Uptdon.”
“But that’s been on his finger for years,” Ott protested. “I saw his father give it to him on his name day about five years ago. Are you sure? Why would it make any difference now?”
“I’m not sure,” Mel said. According to what Vern had read to them, elementals could be called forth as guardians. But why now? And who or what had summoned them? “The northernmost port has the six statues of the old gods. People of the north have been more true in their faith. Or so it’s been said. It’s not surprising that Pesca’s ring has been kept in one family for so long.” She eyed Charl. Of course, she had no proof, only observation.
“I guess we’ll know if it’s the ring that did it in a minute or so,” Jaine said, wary in her words. Caution made her inch behind Mel, putting some distance between herself and the now-stirring Charl.
Ott stooped to help the young man sit up. They all watched with interest as Charl rubbed his head. Taking his wrist, Mel searched him with a gentle, invisible stroke. The last time she’d tried a light probing, she’d been blocked. But now, she jumped from agamite to agamite with ease, one particle to the next, no longer any obstacles in her way. Easing the pain of his aching head, she found no other signs of physical distress.
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
“What happened?” he said. “The last I remember, we were on the boat. I was…angry. Then the river got angry, too. I think I broke the boat. I killed all those people. I didn’t mean to, so I made all the water go away. But that was wrong, too. So, I brought back all the water from home. From the north.”
“You didn’t do it all on your own,” Mel told him. She wasn’t certain who controlled the water, but she knew that when she’d been inside the fire elemental in Tooran, she had not been in control of it either.
“No,” he insisted. “It was me. I was upset. I’ve been angry since the trogs killed my father. I just…” He sank his head into his hands, fingers raking through the dirty strands. “I killed all those people.” Then, taking his hands away, stared at the clean band of skin where his ring had been.
“I have it,” Mel said. “I have your ring.”
He stood up, groaning like an infirm old man. Ott assisted him, catching him under the arm. “It’s fine,” he said. “I don’t deserve to wear my father’s ring anyway. Keep it.”
“For now,” she said. Jaine’s head swung around in surprise to look at her.
True, after the horrific events on the river, they couldn’t trust Charl to wear the water ring. But she sensed change in him. His heart beat at a pace which suggested sincere remorse. The pallor of his skin, the position of his body…all which she had been trained to study. If he could control his anger, he might still be the ring bearer who could control the water elemental.
As for now, Mel had a different problem. With the water ring in one hand and the fire medallion in the other, her body was beginning to vibrate. Icy cold flashed up the hand, wrist, a
nd arm with the ring. Heat surged up the other. As the two forces met and clashed in the center, waves of nausea passed through Mel.
“Are you coming with us?” she asked Jaine. Not much of a choice, Mel realized. Tooran was burning. The Uptdon was unpredictable in the extreme. And something in Navio had caused its citizens to flee.
When Jaine faltered in her nod, a hesitant start and stop, Mel knew she had yet another promise to keep, though unspoken for now—to get Jaine home. But for now, Mel said, “Good. I need you to carry this for me.” Because she knew Jaine had carried the medallion before without issue, she gave it back to her now. “Keep it safe in your bag. Until we find its rightful owner—the person who can wear it.”
Was Charl the right person? Perhaps. But whoever it was, she would find him. With any luck, that person wasn’t the long-dead Mask of Tooran.
Chapter 37
Ott led Mel and the other two to his camp south of the town where Rav, Bookman, and the others waited, still not able to believe that he’d been at the river at the right moment to fish her out of its raging, murderous waves. He could have missed her. Thinking along those lines made his mouth flood with saliva. He swallowed hard until he no longer thought he might lose the one meal he’d had that day.
On the way to their camp, he relayed to Mel what he’d seen in Navio. While the sun had been shining, he’d decided to scout around Navio to see how bad it was. Because the ground was unstable, pockmarked by a thousand gigantic sinkholes and crumbling where it wasn’t, he hadn’t gotten far in his exploration. Smoldering buildings, huddled groups of the wounded, and an acrid stench met him at the edge of town. No trogs, as far as he could tell. It looked as if they’d retreated back underground for now.
“It was just like Cillary,” he said with a shudder, holding back a low branch so she and Jaine could pass through the woods. He released it just as Charl came through, letting it swat him in the chest. When the younger man glared, Ott shrugged.
“The same odor?” Mel wanted to know.
“Yes. Maybe not as bad. But Cillary had just the one pit and Navio has scores of them. A lot of ventilation for those fumes, I think.”
“And the trogs came up through the ground out of the sinkholes?”
“Yes, like moles coming out of their dens. Terrible-smelling, ugly moles,” Ott confirmed. He held another branch back for the two women, again letting it slap Charl across the chest. The young man shook his head in disgust but said nothing other than making a rude gesture.
Ott took Mel’s hand—not because she needed assistance getting over the dead tree trunk they crossed, but because she was here now and he could touch her. Lutra knew Mel could probably lift him over the bloody tree, but he couldn’t let her go just now. He couldn’t stop looking at her either. He noticed she held onto his hand, too, though he thought it looked like a massive paw compared to her soft, slim one. She gave his fingers a squeeze.
“And the number of dead?” she asked with trepidation. Her eyes narrowed, but he knew it was because she was preparing herself for the worst. Bracing for a rush of pain.
Ott shook his head. “I don’t know. And just like before, the trogs left no dead lying around.” Which was a gruesome reminder of just how the creatures treated their slaughtered enemies—they ate them.
“But why are the trogs so far south?” Mel asked herself. Ott paused to offer Jaine a hand over the fallen log, but the girl refused. Suit yourself, he thought, not minding at all. He’d rather jog to catch up with Mel anyway, craving her proximity. When reached her, he shortened his stride so he matched her steps, crashing through the underbrush beside her, all of his hunter stealth lost for the moment. Though her legs were long for a woman, his gargantuan steps were far longer. Good thing she never seemed to mind.
He cleared his throat and tried to pay attention to what she was saying. But, by Lutra, he was just so glad to see her. Her hair was dark for the moment, which he liked. Truth be told, he liked it anyway she changed it. And he liked not knowing when it would change. Gods, he was a complete sap for her. He shook his head to clear it. “The mines are north, but they’re almost all shut down. No activity up there. Cillary Keep is all but abandoned. No one would send their daughter anywhere near that hell hole. It’s a natural progression for the trogs to come here next. Sad to say.”
Mel shoved her matted hair back—what color was it under there? Sometimes she turned it golden, which he liked. Mostly, it was a soft, deep brown, which he loved most of all. Even covered with dirt and river muck with double the number of freckles on her nose because half were mud splatters, she looked beautiful to him. “I think you’re right,” she said. “But why? What draws them now? There’s no agamite down here.”
“I might have a clue about that,” he told her and explained what he’d surmised from Bookman’s crude stick figure drawing in the forest floor. He went on, “If trogs are just the foot soldiers in this mess…then there’s something greater going on here than we know.”
“Trogs and elementals,” Mel murmured. “Pieces of a puzzle.” He pushed back another branch so she could pass through unmolested while deep in thought. She was a pleasure to watch when she was like this. As tenacious as a dog with a bone. As single-minded as his sister rooting after the truth when one of her three boys had told a fib. Mel’s mind worked and churned over a problem until it loosened, like strings of a knot. He knew he didn’t have the brains for it, so he admired the skill even more in her.
Jaine passed through the narrow space, then he let the branch fly in Charl’s face. This time, the young man was faster and blocked with his arm. He shot Ott a triumphant grin. However, Ott was already off and thinking about what Mel had just said. “Pieces of a puzzle? More like pieces of a game, like that old strategy game Rob’s father used to play.”
Charl perked up at that, and Ott remembered the kid had played the game for hours with Rob’s father. The old man had been a tyrant of the northern manor for most of Ott’s born days. Charl had been his close companion and manservant—more reason not to trust him completely. When Col Rob had been gutted, slit from belly to chin by Mel’s birth father, Charl had been left without a real purpose in life, no role to play at the big house. It was obvious to Ott why Charl had wanted to go south and leave all that behind. No one wanted to be remembered for being the bootlicker of a bloody madman.
But let the young man step up and show his merit, Ott thought. Let him prove to them all that he was worthy of their consideration. Charl had caught up to Mel now and was yammering on about pieces of that boring game that Ott had never had the patience to learn. People went on and on about the subtlety of the moves, the strategies and the famous defenses. All the while, they stared at a flat board on a table. The thought of it made Ott want to tear his hair out.
Watching Charl and Mel walking with their heads together, deep in conversation, Ott wondered if he should have been paying better attention to games of strategy such as that one. Maybe he should have improved his mind more when he was younger. Then he’d have more in common with Mel. Having more things to chat about would insure a longer, happier shared life, wouldn’t it? Jogging to catch up with them, he tried to suss out bits and pieces of their conversation.
“Just like a chan formation, the opening move of a game in which the opening pieces are merely pawns or foot soldiers, if you catch my meaning,” Charl was saying, to which Mel at first frowned. Then light seemed to dawn in her mind and she nodded with vigor.
“Not so much the stealth of a chool or the aggression of a boneye,” she said. “But more as if it were the first wave, the foundation of a complex, multi-layered strategy.” The chool piece in this game was often fashioned in the likeness of the snake god, Colbrid, and could be used to stab through an opponent’s defenses when such a move was least expected. Ott knew at least that much. He forever associated the piece with Col Rob, the tyrant.
“That’s what I thought, too,” Ott broke in as he came alongside them. When Mel tilted her head toward
him, he scrambled to elaborate. “When Bookman drew the stick figures in the dirt, I had a sudden flash that the trogs were just foot soldiers.” Charl looked at him with unveiled skepticism, and Ott felt like an idiot for talking about stick drawings in the mud, as if he were an overgrown ape in a cage trying to communicate with elderly statesmen, scholars of the first class.
“Right,” Charl said. And though he seemed to be agreeing with Ott, his tone sounded condescending. “As I was saying, I think the trogs will soon dwindle in numbers. And then we’ll see the next class of piece—so to speak—enter the game. Something more powerful, perhaps.”
A decrease in numbers? Ott scoffed to himself. Not bloody likely. Not from what he’d seen down in the depths of the trog pits a summer ago when they’d been piled on his back. They had pounded his innards as if they’d wanted to tenderize their dinner before gobbling it down with a mouthful of his sweat and spit to wash it down.
“And what do you think about the events on the river?” Mel asked Charl. They’d walked ahead again, leaving Ott behind, bewildered and with growing anxiety. Charl was a decent enough young man—not that much younger than Mel. Clearly they had much in common. Keen minds and all of that. The beautiful blond houseboy with his clean, white smile. Lutra had smiled on this one, perhaps even as much as she favored Ott. Charl didn’t have to contend with uncontrollable bouts of battle rage, limbs that grew on occasion, and boundless devotion for her…which was as attractive as having a panting puppy trailing behind her every step of the way.
Mel waved off the hand Charl offered her over the next fallen tree. He stopped to help Jaine up. Then as Ott jogged closer, Charl released the foliage he had been holding back. He had the nerve to grin at Ott as the branch swatted him soundly across the mouth.