Unchained fire raced along the second conduit toward Brees. Brees mumbled words lost in the roar.
The fire poured over Brees's body and encased the shaman like an orange and red eggshell. Brees's arm rose with palm stretched out toward Ormond.
She tossed the seeds high and pulled on nature's magic.
Ormond's face met hers and panic ignited the shaman's red-rimmed eyes.
She found the seeds floating in space and sent flows of energy deep inside their kernels.
Black vines with glistening thorns slithered toward Ormond.
The shaman held none of the elemental magic he'd commanded moments before. Ormond backed away head shaking. "It can't be."
She willed her living armor forward. A tangle of vines and thorns sprouted and encased her body. She paused beside Brees who stood engulfed by the elements.
Brees held the room’s trapped energy in a tight cocoon. The shaman appeared calm showing no sign of strain. Brees nodded toward Ormond. "Wrap him up."
Huffing and wheezing, Ormond scuttled toward the stairway.
She poured energy into the vines and wrapped Ormond's leg.
The shaman screeched and fell face first onto the crystal floor. Vines slithered around Ormond wrapping him like an over-stuffed sausage.
Brees crossed the room and hovered over Ormond.
"Can you hold the energy a few minutes longer?" she said.
A spark of annoyance touched Brees's eyes. “I can hold it.” Electricity sparked and flared toward Ormond.
The Brotherhood's leader squealed. "If you touch me, the Brotherhood will see you dead."
She moved around the orb and knelt before Dravin's smoldering corpse.
Wisps of blue smoke coiled from sorcerer's blackened skin.
Her stomach churned. She held her breath and knelt before Dravin’s charred remains. With a sharp tug, she freed the satchel from the sorcerer’s shoulder.
"No." Ormond's eyes flared in full panic. "That's mine. Dravin promised it for me."
Movement came from the chamber’s entrance.
She whirled still clutching the satchel and reached for nature's magic.
Brees faced the door and gathered the flame and electricity into a tight ball. The necklace dangling from Brees’s chest glowed cherry red.
Keely's face appeared through the opening followed by Arber and Jeremy.
"Easy lover boy," Keely said glaring at Brees. The guardian’s finger wagged toward the swirling flame. "You're going to put someone’s eye out with that."
Relief washed over her. "Keely, you're safe."
Brees let go the gathered magic. Fire and electricity buzzed in a tight spiral around the shaman.
"Of course I am." Keely peered toward Ormond writhing on the floor. "What has him all tied up?"
Jeremy stepped forward. A detention shield sprang to life around Ormond's encased body. “Danielle, are you okay?” The knight’s blue eyes met hers.
She smiled. “I’m fine."
Ormond’s horror-stricken face fell on the shield knight. “What are you doing to me?”
Arber shifted into a forest cat and stalked the circular chamber. A low rumble came from the guardian’s throat.
“Keely, did you find it?” She said.
"No. I'm sorry Danielle. I searched every inch of Dravin's house and found nothing," Keely said.
Her shoulders sagged. Maybe Dravin didn't have a heartwood tree, but the sorcerer could've told her where to find one. Now she'd never know.
Jeremy nodded toward the satchel dangling from her hand. "Is that it?"
"The antidote? Yes." She shifted the satchel in her arms. "Ormond and Dravin made a deal for it."
"Let's see it," Keely said.
She opened the satchel and peered inside.
Crystal canisters filled with clear liquid rested inside.
She reached inside and pulled out one of the canisters.
Ormond's gaze locked on the canister. "You can't. That's mine," the shaman whimpered.
Keely shot a hard glance toward the bundled shaman. "Pipe down or I'll have him shut you up permanently." Keely nodded toward Arber stalking the distraught shaman.
Arber’s white teeth flashed and the guardian's nose crinkled into a snarl.
Ormond's eyes widened.
Jeremy came up beside her and grabbed a second container from the open satchel. "This cures the plague?"
She nodded and pulled free a crystal stopper resting inside the container's neck. "There's enough here to cure thousands of people." She raised the open container to her nose and inhaled. The liquid registered no scent. Her brow furrowed. "That's odd."
"What is it?" Jeremy said.
"I expected to smell cinnamon," she said.
"Maybe it's not real?" Keely said.
She glanced to Keely and back to the canister. "There's one way to test." She reached for nature magic and directed a current into the liquid contents.
The green glow she expected never materialized. Nothing happened.
She pressed the container to her lips and tasted the contents. Her stomach sank. "It's water."
"What?" Ormond's face flushed. "That can’t be. Dravin promised. He showed me proof."
"What proof?" she said.
The shaman's eyes flickered from side to side. "I saw the healing process with my own eyes," Ormond said in a low mutter.
“What did you see?” she said.
“Dravin brought a boy from Niska to the temple for healing. Red marks covered the child’s arms,” Ormond said. “Dravin gave the boy the antidote and the next day the red blotches vanished.”
"He played you," Keely said and glanced toward Dravin’s corpse. "But, I’d say Dravin never bargained for this."
Ormond's face turned a sick shade of green. "That's impossible."
“You believed what you wanted to believe,” she said.
“Then I’m not cured?” Ormond said.
Brees stepped toward the orb spinning at the room's center.
Her head jerked toward the sphere. "What are you doing?"
“I want to take a look at that symbol.” Brees murmured words lost in the hum of swirling elemental energy.
The orb stirred and shifted.
Her mouth fell open and she gawked at the orb moving from its trap.
"He'll go mad fooling with the orb," Ormond said. "Even I can't touch the emperor's raw power."
"I thought you said he could take the orb's power," Keely said.
Ormond's face flushed crimson. "I meant that for Dravin's benefit. I never —"
"In other words, you lied," Keely said.
The orb shifted and floated away from the room's center. On the floor, the Brotherhood’s symbol sat etched in the crystal floor.
She stepped forward and knelt before the symbol. The symbol she'd seen in the ruins and again at the temple. But, where she'd seen empty sockets for the orbs of power, three keyholes appeared. Symbols written in the ancient language stood above each one.
Keely knelt beside the symbol and gawked. “Well, what do you think about that?”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Alone on the Savanna
The campfire crackled and popped. Smoke drifted skyward carrying the aroma of fresh meat into the night air. Around them, the mist hung like a stranger stopped at the door. The fire repelled the mist, the savanna's roaming beasts, and the faceless man.
With a full belly, Ronan kept a wary eye trained on the mist rolling in from the north. Toward the forest where, hours ago, the faceless man had ended Tarbin's life.
Distant chatter and the blare of some exotic beast rolled across the savanna.
General Demos stood over the fire prodding the meat with a stick. The general appeared no more tired than when they'd awoken from camp a day earlier.
Despite his exhaustion, he couldn't sleep. Not with the faceless man roaming the mist and the savanna’s strange beasts lurking in the shadows. All waiting for them to rest their heads and close th
eir eyes. All waiting to strike. "Are you going to sleep?" He glanced toward the moon hanging low in the western sky. "It'll be morning in a few hours. One of us should sleep."
"On this night, sleep won't find me human," General Demos said.
He glanced toward the forest. "We should find Tarbin and give him a proper burial."
General Demos glanced up from the fire and paused. "The beasts will have taken Tarbin's body by now."
A lump formed in his stomach. "We should at least check."
General Demos nodded and poked the embers beneath the blackened logs. A fresh flame took hold and a shower of sparks filled the air.
He picked up the arrow lying beside him and rolled the black shaft between his fingertips.
Orange and yellow feathers sprouted from its shaft. The arrow's tip, a wide barbed head chiseled from stone, could double as a knife. The arrow would rip a fist-sized hole in a man's chest. Whoever fletched these arrows didn't mean to use them against humans.
"I wonder who made these." He said.
General Demos tossed another log atop the fire and glanced toward the mist. "I don't know, but the thought has weighed on my mind all night."
"Was it the faceless man?" He dismissed the idea as soon as it crossed his lips.
"He used a sword," General Demos said. "I don't think the faceless man has interest in killing the creatures roaming the mist."
"Did you hear the rattling sound? When we first saw the faceless man I mean?"
"I heard it and the war cries."
He whirled his head toward General Demos. "War cries?"
"Ancient baerinese tribes used similar war cries. At least, that's what I've read."
He returned his focus to the arrow. "Those cries were..."
"Unsettling?"
"Yes. I think the faceless man felt the same way."
General Demos nodded. "Whoever made the rattling sound also chased away the faceless man. For that, we can be grateful."
"Do you think those same people crafted this arrow?"
"It's likely," General Demos said. "Had they chosen, they could've turned their arrows on us. They could shoot us dead this minute."
Chill's rippled along his neck. He glanced across the mist hanging low over the savanna. Were they out there in the mist? Out there watching them right now? “What about the rattling sound?”
“A warning perhaps? I can’t say for sure.”
His thoughts drifted back to a word Zeke used during their last conversation. "Zeke called you sansan. Do you know what that means?"
General Demos's eyebrow raised. "I heard the word, but it sounded like gibberish."
"It means nothing to you? Zeke seemed...sure of it somehow." His gaze drifted south over the endless savanna.
A land that stretched flat to the horizon. Long and empty. Foreign in every imaginable way. A land where he might wander lost for years.
How could he find the ruins in this vast uncharted world?
"We should go back," General Demos said. The general sat beside the fire staring off into the distance.
He narrowed his eyes and frowned. "Go back? We can't go back."
"We're lost human." General Demos panned the horizon. "Can't you see? Given time, the beasts that roam this land will have us. And the faceless man too."
"For me, there is no going back," he said. "We'll lose at least two weeks returning to the swamp."
"Zeke could tell us where to go," General Demos said.
"Are you sure about that? What if he's out of guides? What if no other banthers volunteers to lead us? After what happened to Tarbin, the tribe might tear us apart."
"We have no choice. We might wander these plains for a lifetime and not find the ruins. We don't even know what to look for. What sort of ruins are these? A single piece of worn stone? A collection of rocks hidden behind overgrown weeds? We don't know."
"Zeke said the ruins lie at the world's edge."
"That means nothing."
His face flashed hot and his adrenaline spiked. "That's easy for you to say. Isn't it?” He thrust his hand northward. “Your people aren't the ones under attack or have you forgotten? You and your kind came to our country to slaughter us. We're enemies General Demos."
General Demos's shoulders sagged. "That's not what I meant."
He spit out a short bitter laugh. "You expect me to believe that? You befriended a monster. She's come to these shores and slaughtered innocent people. Women and children.” His face trembled with rage. “Whole families. You let her get away with murder."
"Let her? No." The general's words came out a whisper.
"Why?" He screamed across the fire and his eyes welled with tears. "In Elan's good name, how could you let her do it? Those people did you no harm. We've done nothing to any of your people."
"You don't understand." A profound sadness settled in the general's eyes.
"Then explain it to me, please.” He perched on the leather pack using it as a makeshift stool. “By all accounts, you're a good man. You’ve saved my life on more than one occasion. You could’ve let me die, but you didn’t. You chose an honorable path. You’re a man I would call a friend under any other circumstance." His voice reflected his long-simmering frustration. The unspoken tension had gone on long enough. He needed this in the open to either bury or confront.
Tears welled in General Demos's eyes. "Tara came to our shores centuries ago filled with a bottomless pit of anger. Long before my time of course." The general's gaze drifted to the campfire. "She slaughtered thousands of baerinese. Her anger stormed for centuries. Tara grew an army on the souls of my ancestors."
"An army of the dead?"
General Demos nodded. "We couldn't fight back."
"You raise an army and you fight. You don’t just give up," he said. "That fate is far better than death."
"Don’t you think we tried?" General Demos stared into the fire through hollow eyes. "Many times in the early centuries. We raised armies and confronted her head-on. She slaughtered those armies without mercy. She turned the dead against the living."
Haunted words spoken by a haunted man. Goose bumps flared across his arms and back, but he remained silent.
"In the course of a single battle, her army doubled while Baerin's halved."
"Why didn't she destroy your civilization outright?"
"To what end?" General Demos's eyes met his. "She kept us contained, but needed our living flesh to replenish her forces. We could not defeat her by force."
"So you befriended her?"
General Demos nodded. "We’re a proud people, defeat does not come easy. I had no choice."
"How did it happen?"
"I asked to meet with her," General Demos said. "To plead our case. We formed a…friendship."
"You fooled her."
"At first," the general said. "But, I grew to know her as the decades went by and she softened."
"We're seeing the soft version?"
General Demos smiled. "She spoke of Elan's betrayal. Of humanity's betrayal. Speaking with me calmed the rage in her heart, but a creature like Tara still needs to feed."
“Feed?”
“Without taking life, Tara withers and her strength fades.”
A sickening lump sat heavy in his gut. "You let her…feed?"
"It wasn't a matter of letting her. She could choose to slaughter hundreds or a few. She wouldn't lay down her life no matter how many times I prayed for that to happen. The plan worked for many years. Then the flood came."
"The flood?"
"Our coastal lands flooded. Many believed the seas had risen leaving our great port cities flooded. When the water didn't recede, debate raged among our finest scholars. When the flood waters came inland we understood the truth. Our continent was sinking."
"So, you came here?"
"We spent another decade building a fleet. The task consumed every available resource our land had left to offer."
"Why didn't you wait for the fleet? Why did you and Tara
come ahead?"
"Because of the barrier," General Demos said. "Tara feared the barrier. She said our entire fleet would sink if we hit it."
He stared at the dry grass between his feet. A barrier he'd destroyed by rebuilding Elan's Sphere.
"When she found the barrier gone, I ordered scout ships back to Baerin."
"And, you came here intent on destroying our civilization." He shook his head. "This all could've been avoided."
"Could it?" General Demos glared. "My people fled Meranthia long before Tara arrived. Forced from her shores by humankind."
"If that's true, no one living knew anything about it."
"Tara stoked the fire of debate with her hatred of humanity. She confirmed every fear and suspicion from the ancient past. Our war council decided against greeting humans as friends. We couldn't trust humanity."
"The stories I've heard of that time paint a different picture," he said. "The baerinese invaded Meranthia. They were the aggressors. A man named Gabriel forced them away."
"Is that what you'd like to do? Force us away? Am I helping you toward a prize that will end in our destruction?"
He recalled the images of the baerinese family out for an evening stroll. "No, that's not want I want."
"I viewed humans as monsters. A tyrannical race without compassion. An aggressor." General Demos’s gaze fell to the ground. “But, now….”
"Do you still believe that?"
General Demos met his gaze.
He held the general’s gaze for a long, tension-filled moment. Neither man spoke.
"I do not. Not anymore," General Demos said.
He let go a held breath and ran his fingers through his hair. “How do we stop the invasion?” He gazed north across the mist toward the swamp and the river basin beyond. Toward the danger facing them all. “We all face a greater threat. The world has to know.”
"I'm uncertain the war council will listen to me," General Demos said. "Keeping the alliance intact for so long has proved difficult. Without my presence, I fear the worst."
"We’ll finish here then force them to listen.” He met the general’s gaze. “Together."
"Will your people listen? Can we trust your generals?"
Could they? He imagined men who shared Merric Pride's worldview, but times had changed. "I believe there's room enough in this world for us all. I’ll convince them."
Maylin's Gate (Book 3) Page 26