On the one hand was power, long in the making, now clearly before him and ready for the taking. He could follow a path like Palaeon, or Borras, or Cratus and all the others, and build a little empire of blood here on the streets of Carai. But he'd be no freer than they. Any more than Palaeon, even in victory, was free of his worries.
On the other, he could leave, as he'd planned when Daxar was still alive.
But now with no idea where he might go.
And then there was the question of what he'd do. Even his plans with Daxar, he thought, had centered on fighting or the threat of it. At other times he'd talked of seeking more peace, but did he really want it? All he knew and seemed to be made for was conflict. War and change, as Palaeon had said in his insightful way. Like the storm and like his nickname.
Perhaps it didn't matter where he went or what he did, only that he went and did. He thought of Sorya and Katara. Would they follow him into the unknown? Katara at least was already far from her own home. Sorya was a daughter of Carai, and despite her earlier words, her heart was in its ancient streets. Either way, they'd have their own choices to join him, or not.
For good or ill, the choices he'd made in life were his, and he now fully accepted the consequences. He'd make his future choices and accept their consequences too. No evasions, no compromises and no regrets. If change came, whether from him or to him, what he did with it would be on his terms. Whatever course he took in life, or whatever the world threw at him, his life was his.
His life was his.
Then the first thunderbolt lit up the clouds, and all thoughts but joy were driven from his mind. He stopped in his tracks and looked up at the welcoming sky. Flashes of light illuminated sheets of windswept rain falling from the roiling clouds.
A few passing others, hunched down and running from the storm, shot him strange glances, but he didn't care. Life was good, life was here, all about him and in his outstretched hands. He could feel the crackle of it on his skin and the joy of it in his soul. He stood there transfixed, alone on the street, as lightning flashed across the sky.
As time passed, the thunder subsided and the storm became mere rain. Talaos collected himself and pressed on toward home. He was soaking wet, but cared not at all. Bereft of lightning, the night grew even blacker. He turned down the side street and saw his home, such as it was; one window and a rickety balcony three stories up a crumbling brick wall. Gold was for experiencing life's joys, not for sleeping in a nice room. Well, he smiled to himself, except for those nights where sleep wasn't the point.
He turned the questionable little lock at the front door, ascended the battered stairs, and made his way down the narrow shabby hallway to his door. Unlocking it in turn, he made his way in the dark toward the lamp. Then he sensed it. Something was wrong. Someone was...
"Good evening, Talaos."
It was the low, dangerous voice of Palaeon, and it sounded deadly cold.
In a flash, Talaos drew his sword, but the other's blade was already at his throat.
"Calm down, Tal."
"I don't recall inviting you," quipped Talaos, his temper getting the better of his surprise.
"Nor did you tell me where you now live."
"What do you want?"
"I've figured some things out, Tal. Things about why that stupid, if profitable, war started and where Cratus's gold might have come from. I doubt most of those on the other side ever knew. But that isn't the only thing. There is another, possibly related. Men came to talk to me, Tal. Foreign men, Eastlanders, offering a lot of gold... for you."
Talaos laughed, "Foreign? I didn't know I was so famous. Why not kill me now, then?"
"They wanted you alive, and..."
"Good luck with that. Slice the blade now, or leave, but stop threatening."
"Talaos, this blade is at your throat so you wouldn't try to run me through before I finished talking. Now listen... I'm here to help you."
"If you're still on my side, let's go kill them."
"Not so simple," replied Palaeon, with icy intensity creeping into his cold voice. "I can guess they're just one paw of a vastly bigger beast. I will, and you ought to, think twice about climbing up that paw toward the fangs. I think something much deeper is going on."
"Deeper? There you go with that word again. Don't turn philosopher on me."
"This time, you might want to think about turning philosopher," replied Palaeon.
"Eh?"
"I'd suggest seeing the larger picture, the potential consequences, and alternatives to facing them directly. Because if you do plan to fight them, you'll have choices to make, about who to protect and who to leave exposed. Possibly unpleasant choices."
"And you've made yours," said Talaos coldly.
"That's right. To keep my people alive, while they're still plausibly neutral."
"Why help me at all then?"
"Count this as my one noble act. Or perhaps self-interested in a long-term sense. Those men were either magi, or some other kind of sorcerers. They had magic all around them. There was something more about them, too. They made my skin crawl, and if they could do that, I figured it was a bad thing they have you, however unfathomable it is why they want you."
"What if they decide you aren't plausibly neutral?"
"Then we'll have another war to fight side by side after all," replied Palaeon.
"While we're pondering being brothers in arms, would you take that sword down?"
"Don't get sentimental."
Talaos made a low black-humored laugh, then suddenly halted as the room seemed to fade for a moment into utter darkness. He felt the slightest rush of air. On instinct he brought his blade up in a sweeping defensive circle around him, but he was alone.
~
In the pitch black rainy night, Talaos walked with a pack holding his gold and the few possessions he needed or cared about. The most important of all, his weapons, were strapped to his body and ready.
He struggled to understand what had just happened, and wrestled with what to do next. If Palaeon had wanted him out of the way just then, he'd be dead, so he had little reason to doubt the warning itself. But the reason for the warning made no sense. Why would some unknown sorcerers from the Eastlands want to capture him? How could they know or care who he was? And, he mused, his humor returning, who in all the world and all the hells could make Palaeon's skin crawl?
Regardless, and magi or not, he planned to find these men and find out what they wanted. In the process, he intended to make them regret coming for him.
Then a more worrying thought crept into his mind. Sorya, and Katara! If he was in danger, they might well be too. So might many others, but those two were closest to him, and so likely most at risk. Palaeon had talked of choices. Talaos didn't want his choices leading them to the same fate as Daxar, Pallas, Arax, and so many of his other friends. He would try to get the two of them to leave the city... and far from whatever was coming his way.
There was no time to waste.
~
"You're kidding?" hissed Sorya, still sleepy, as she clutched her sheet around her bare slender body. Her tiny, yet clean and comfortable room was lit by a candle in the corner.
"I wish I was. Palaeon spoke in deadly earnest."
"And you trust him?"
"Do you want to find out if I'm wrong?"
"Ah..."
"You'd been thinking about leaving town for somewhere quieter," added Talaos with a smile and a teasing sparkle in his eyes.
"Yes, probably, under more planned circumstances, and... with you."
"I doubt we have much time. You need to get ready."
She looked up at him with sudden defiant fury, which just as suddenly melted away. She raised herself on her toes, the sheet dropping to the floor, and tried to kiss him. He leaned down so she could. Her dark hair flowed loose down her back. He held her tight by the waist. Her small breasts pressed against his chest and he dropped his other hand to her taut, rounded little bottom. She forced back tears
.
"Now, Sorya."
Without another word, she sprang into action, a lifetime of dangerous survival serving her well as she threw on clothes, gear and weapons, then stuffed a few items in her own small packs.
"All right..." she took a long, deep breath. "I'm ready."
He turned, drawing a blade under his cloak, and led the way.
~
Talaos knocked on the door of Katara's room. She stayed at a cheap inn, just cheap enough to be affordable with what she made from training others in her fighting style, and tavern bets on her own sparring matches against woefully unsuspecting drunks.
There was light showing under the door, and through it came a quick answer.
"Yes?"
"Katara, it's me."
There was motion, and the door opened.
Talaos was surprised to see Katara dressed and armed. It was less surprising to see her fairly large pack of gear ready, as she rarely completely unpacked.
"You all right?" he asked.
"I am not sure. You?" replied Katara, eyeing him and Sorya doubtfully.
"What do you think?"
"Then no."
She looked up at him, and he could see worry in her eyes. She continued. "Tal, I had a feeling I was being followed on my way back tonight. It was like being shadowed by wolves in the forest, when they do not want to be seen... but I could not be sure. Since then, I have been thinking about what I should do."
"The trouble is worse than any wolf. We need to go now. I'll explain along the way."
"Yes," she said sadly. "I hoped, and feared, you might come."
Katara clung to him with unexpected intensity, and he tilted her head back to kiss her parted lips. Then, she took a half step back, said something in her harsh-sounding language, and embraced him in a strangely formal way. Her face became sadly grim, and she translated.
"To the very end, it means."
~
With cloaks about them and hoods drawn low, Talaos, Sorya and Katara made their way down bleak and gritty back streets in a steady rain. They took varying routes, ducking through alleys and around corners. All three had weapons drawn under their cloaks.
Sorya drew close to him and whispered in a low, worried voice. "Couldn't we try a ship?"
"At this time of night?" replied Talaos. "And, who do you know that you can trust?"
"No one really, I guess, but do you trust that gate guard?" replied Sorya.
At that, he pulled her even closer, whispering directly in her ear. "Unlike aboard a docked ship, we won't be waiting all night to find out."
"But after the gate?"
"Shh."
Talaos knew his plan. He was not, however, about to explain it here in the city, within potential earshot. He'd spent a lot of time wandering the coastal hills when he was younger, especially during weather, and he knew a few out of the way, sheltered places to hide. If they were really lucky, they might have one last night together, before he sent them on their way.
Beside them, Katara walked in stolid, watchful silence.
However, as they rounded a corner from a twisting alley, and looked out onto a street with one dead end, she suddenly gripped Talaos's arm.
"I feel something..." she said in a low voice.
Talaos felt something too, something wrong in the air behind them. He grabbed the women by their wrists and pulled them at a sprint out into the street, making for the open end.
They were too late.
Down that street came a mob of armed, tough-looking men, thirty-five or more. Some Talaos recognized, survivors and cast-offs of the gang wars, but others he did not, and some had foreign looks.
Out of the alley behind Talaos came three more men. They wore all-concealing, but otherwise varied and nondescript hooded cloaks of weathered tans and browns. As they fanned out into a line side by side, Talaos noticed something about them change. Their postures straightened, their movements acquired a strange fluidity, and they began to walk in perfect step with one another. A shadow seemed to grow around them. Behind came another six men, bronze-skinned, black-haired and bearded, with short leaf-bladed swords. Eastlanders.
They were cut off, with the dead end behind them.
Talaos threw back his cloak and drew his swords. Sorya faced the mob of men with a look of intense, cold concentration, and a dagger in each hand.
Katara raised her long, heavy sword perfectly vertically before her, and in a low voice said, "Here I will stand, as my forefathers watch, and I will not shame them."
Talaos backed toward the wall, preferring to face enemies on three sides rather than four, and hoping for the off chance he might notice some way up or out back there. Sorya and Katara followed. Overhead, the wind began to pick up.
The mass of armed men advanced. The three cloaked men walked forward in lockstep with eerily smooth speed, forward in front of the others. When they faced Talaos directly, still distant, they stopped, each at exactly the same moment, while the rest shuffled to a halt behind them. The three men pulled back their hoods and dropped their cloaks in perfect unison.
Underneath they revealed aquiline features, bronze skin and long black beards. Their faces were of indeterminate age, their dark brows were rounded and soft over strangely gentle eyes, and their thin lips faintly smiled. They wore robes and caps of white linen trimmed in complex patterned green, and each bore a copper rod in his right hand.
The rods themselves, however, varied. The man on the left bore one capped with the face of a hunting hawk, the middle with that of a striking serpent, and that on the right with a vulture.
In unison, they raised their left hands, then motioned forward.
The three men advanced again, in slow, simultaneous steps with the mob behind them.
As the enemy approached, Talaos, Sorya, and Katara waited with drawn weapons. Talaos watched every detail of the advancing foe intently, hoping to spot an opportunity. Then the man on the left, he of the Hawk, spoke in a soft, sonorous voice,
"We have seen the signs..."
"...they have called to us..." added the Serpent.
"...and they are upon him," finished the Vulture.
Talaos realized with a start that the men had not moved their smiling lips as they'd spoken. No one else seemed to react. Overhead, the rain grew stronger. A peal of distant thunder rolled through the dark sky. Talaos, in a corner of his mind, thought it odd so late in a storm, but he had greater problems at hand.
"He can hear us..." whispered the Hawk from an unmoving mouth.
"...but does not yet comprehend..." added the Serpent.
"...as the Living Prophet foretold," finished the Vulture.
The three smiling robed men advanced in unity. More than forty others followed in grim confidence behind. Lightning cracked in the sky around them as the wind rose and howled.
"Spawn of sin and blasphemy..." silently said the Hawk.
"...Something comes..." added the Serpent.
"...We must be swift," finished the Vulture.
As one, the three raised their rods level with the ground and pointed at Talaos. A kind of faint mist, venomous green, formed in the gaping mouth of each copper creature.
That, others reacted to.
Katara seemed to force herself to take a step forward, eyes on the Vulture. Sorya reacted faster. Quick as a cat, she threw a dagger at the throat of the Hawk. She missed, and it struck high in his chest near the collar, but hilt-deep. Without a pause or a change in expression, he reached with his left hand, pulled out the dagger, and tossed it to the ground. There was a small trickle of blood, but no more. Then all three men raised their left hands again, and as one motioned forward.
Forty armed men charged.
Talaos roared to the two women, "Stay with me! Stay together!"
Sorya stood slightly behind to his left, short sword and dagger drawn. Katara on his right held her heavy sword in both hands. Talaos had his long sword in his right hand and his short in his left, gleaming in the ever more frequen
t flashes of lightning.
Then the enemy was upon them.
Talaos cut down a man with a sweep of his long blade and ran another through with the short. He saw the three smiling men advancing on him, but laughed in wild defiance at them as he spun low and disemboweled a third enemy.
Katara fought with such sudden ferocity that some of the foes around her startled in shock. She roared in her northern tongue, sent one man flying with a kick, tripped and impaled another, and nearly beheaded a third with an overhead two-handed blow of her sword. Then, the greater numbers of the enemy began to tell, and she was forced back step by fighting step away from the others.
On the left, Sorya ducked and twisted, bringing her short sword up into the groin of a charging thug. He toppled past her and she aimed a slash for the tendons of another. However, a third man brought a club down on her shoulder and she crumpled back towards the wall with a scream.
The smiling men reached Talaos. Their own followers now held back, fear in their eyes. Green mist curled forth from the faces on the copper rods. It surrounded Talaos and he felt an icy cold gather round him, in body and spirit. His shoulders drooped. He felt transfixed, weakening...
"Let your soul be cleansed of its curse..." gently whispered the Hawk, this time directly to Talaos.
"...Surrender your life for the good of this world..." added the Serpent.
"...and be forgiven in the next," finished the Vulture.
No, thought Talaos, slowly mastering himself.
He rose to full height. A proud smile curled on his lips, implacable will rose in his mind, and furious passion flashed in his spirit.
His life was his.
A massive bolt of lightning struck in the air directly overhead, the thunderclap drowning out all other sound. Everyone in the street stood in momentary, dumbfounded shock. Everyone except Talaos and the three smiling men. Talaos felt a thrill of power run through his body, felt it arc and crack along his arms and into his hands, his weapons. Felt it radiate from his soul.
The mist dissipated around him, as if blown away in the wind, and a faint aura of electricity washed over the three smiling men.
The Storm's Own Son (Book 1) Page 8