Unbroken Chain (single books)

by Jaleigh Johnson

  It is an unreasoning fear, he told himself. It doesn’t come from you. Don’t let it infect the flesh …

  Straining against the hand at his throat, Ashok threw his weight backward into Skagi’s body. Caught by surprise, the man stumbled. Ashok jerked his neck free and sucked in air, but the respite didn’t stop the roaring. The nightmare filled every corner of his vision. He couldn’t find his feet to run.

  There was a sharp rap on the back of his skull-a katar hilt, Ashok thought: the young one was too fast. Ashok fell on his side on the hard ground. He looked up, a sliding glance filled with shadar-kai warriors, Neimal the witch, and the nightmare watching the scene from its cage.

  So close. He’d been so close to freedom, only to have it snatched away by that creature. He knew of the nightmares, had heard them screaming on the Shadowfell plain. He had even seen one running down its prey from a distance. But nothing had prepared him for the feeling of hopelessness and terror.

  Ikemmu. City of towers. Beacon in the Shadowdark. Home of nightmares. What was this place? he thought, as he slid towards unconsciousness.

  The nightmare’s crimson eyes were the last thing he saw.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In the dream, he slept on the ground next to the dregs of a fire and breathed the leftover greasy stink of cooked game. They weren’t supposed to light fires so deep in the caves, because the ventilation was poor. Ashok knew he’d be punished for it, but his muscles, weak from fighting, had craved the fresh meat to nourish him.

  Ashok opened his eyes in the dark. He heard footsteps coming down the passage.

  Which one was coming?

  Ashok sat up, the dying embers illuminating his body. There was no armor to don-he wore the bone scales in his sleep. He kept his chain wrapped around his hand, and his dagger rested nearby.

  All ready.

  Which one would come?

  He had no idea how much time had passed since he’d first gone to sleep, but his body felt stretched thin, un-rested. That was how they intended it, of course, his unknown enemy. The odds were better if Ashok was distracted by fatigue.

  Keep sleep elusive, his father had told him. Attrition will win you a battle, and a higher place in the enclave.

  But Ashok had eaten the meat. His foe had eaten none.

  He heard the footsteps distinctly-a heavy tread and a bulky form filled the tunnel. Lakesh.

  “I’m here, brother,” Ashok said. His voice echoed down the tunnel. “Would you speak with me?”

  “I would,” Lakesh said, “with steel. I’d rather you’d not woken at all.”

  “Then turn and go back to your bed,” Ashok said. Hope danced like a spider through his chest. “Speak with me in the morning, and use words.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  Ashok released a breath and tightened his chain. His brother stepped into the chamber.

  Big. Slow. A waste of flesh.

  Instead of a hand, his brother held out a sword. Fever-bright eyes, trembling hands-Ashok recognized all the signs. His brother was ready to move up in the hierarchy, to replace Ashok as their father’s favorite.

  “I need this, brother. I’m the eldest.”

  Ashok stood. With the smoky fire between them, his brother’s body seemed a mirage in the flickering light.

  “I need this,” Lakesh repeated.

  Ashok understood that need all too well. The need to earn a higher place in the enclave, the need to please their father, all wrapped up in the constant need to keep their souls from fading.

  They were slipping away faster as the years passed. Soon no amount of infighting would keep them anchored to the world. Would the shadows consume them, or would they destroy each other first?

  “Come ahead,” Ashok said.

  Ashok awoke on the wrong side of Ikemmu’s wall, lying in the middle of a rutted road. Distantly, he heard caravan wheels rattling, but it might have been the gusting wind. All sounds were watery echoes while the nightmare’s scream rang in his ears.

  Skagi and Cree stood over him. Ikemmu’s four towers formed a backdrop like bars. Remembering Lakesh, and expecting an attack from the warriors, Ashok went for his weapons-gone again-and tried to spring to his feet. A wave of dizziness assaulted him, and he stumbled.

  “Easy!” Skagi barked.

  Cree reached toward Ashok. Viciously, Ashok batted his hand away. He came up to his knees, prepared to fight from the ground if he had to.

  Cree stepped back and raised his hands. “We’re not going to attack you,” he said.

  Breathing hard, Ashok tried to regain his balance. The warriors watched him; Cree looked ready to grab him if he fell again.

  Why would they help him up? An image of Lakesh coming for his death while he slept went through Ashok’s mind. Surely it was a trick to slip a katar between his ribs. But the warriors could have done that at any time while he lay unconscious.

  Ashok managed to get to his feet, and Skagi again held his weapons out to him.

  “You’ll live,” he said. “Sometimes the nightmare’s screams make a body dizzy if he’s not used to them.”

  Ashok took his weapons. It took him a breath to orient himself from the dark cave to the open spaces of the city. The dream had been so vivid that the wide expanse put him on edge. He was vulnerable out here in the open.

  When Ashok felt steady enough, he turned to Cree and Skagi. “Why didn’t you kill me?” he asked. He remembered the burning sword and the line of guards. The witch had wanted to kill him. He’d seen her barely controlled fury. “What do you want from me?”

  “That’s not for us to say,” Cree said.

  Ashok clenched his fists in frustration. He almost wished they would attack him, torture him. Those things he understood. But to be held and not harmed, free and not free-it made no sense to him.

  “Where is the nightmare?” he asked. The echo of its scream was still in his head, and provided a momentary distraction.

  “They’ll take it to the pens for the Camborrs to break,” Skagi said, “though Olra may be taking on more than she can handle this time.”

  “You train nightmares?” Ashok said, and a wave of excitement threaded though his muscles.

  “We train anything we can break,” Skagi said. “If you’d left any alive, we’d have taken your hound friends.”

  “But only those who’ve got the rank of Camborr-that was the name of the shadar-kai who first started taming the beasts-know how to train them without being ripped to pieces,” Cree said.

  “Is that what you are?” Ashok asked. “Camborrs?”

  Cree shook his head. “We only just entered Tempus’s service. We’re warriors in training. Someday we’ll serve the city in His name.”

  “And Uwan is your leader,” Ashok said. He looked over the stone buildings to Tower Athanon in the distance. “I want to see him.”

  Ashok knew he would be denied, even expected the warriors to laugh at the request. So he was shocked when Skagi said, “Good-he wants to see you. He knew you’d try to escape. But you got us in the piss and bitter with Neimal for letting you run amok on the wall, so thanks for that. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to burn you down when you’re not looking.” Scowling, Skagi drew his falchion and pointed to the tower. “Let’s go,” he said.

  The warriors fell in behind him. Ashok noticed Skagi kept his blade in his hand and Cree’s palms rested on his katars’ hilts. But Ashok had no intention of running again.

  As they walked, Ashok was aware of the eyes that gazed out from the stone dwellings: shadar-kai, dark ones, and the startling other races that walked with them. Ashok kept his body tense in case of an attack.

  When they approached the fence around Tower Athanon, Ashok saw weapon racks leaned against the bars. A hundred or more shadar-kai milled around a training yard, sparring or talking in groups.

  Skagi pulled open the gate at the same time Ashok heard the tolling of a massive bell in the distance. He turned and saw the bells at the top of Tower Makthar, ha
lf hidden between four stone spikes, a black crown that speared the shadows of the cavern ceiling.

  “The Trimmer bell,” Cree explained when Ashok stared at the bell in confusion. “You were unconscious a while.”

  “What purpose does it serve?” Ashok asked.

  “The bell?” Cree said, looking surprised. “Time. It’s second bell. We mark six intervals of the day. How do you mark time where you come from?”

  Ashok didn’t reply. He thought of his chamber deep in the caves of the enclave. He had never marked time, not formally; he functioned according to the needs of his body. When he was hungry, he ate. When he was tired, he slept-when he wasn’t defending himself from being killed in his sleep. His father and the other leaders of his enclave decided when patrols and hunting parties went out. Maybe they had marked the passage of time in some way, but he saw no purpose to it himself.

  Hearing the bell, the shadar-kai in the yard formed up in ten lines facing the tower. With shoulders perfectly aligned, they stared straight ahead, unmoving, until the bell stopped tolling.

  “Over here,” Cree said as he and Skagi led Ashok to a section of fence off to the side of the formation.

  A doorway at the base of the tower opened, and a shadar-kai man stepped out.

  “There he is,” Cree said, his tone reverent. “Uwan.”

  Unhelmed, Uwan had long, silken white hair and wore a suit of shadowmail and a black cloak. At his hip rode a greatsword. He looked not much older than the shadar-kai who stood at attention before him, yet he had an air of calm that the others did not possess.

  The shadar-kai reached maturity at various ages, according to their temperaments. The wildest offspring, those unable to focus, might reach thirty winters with their minds not fully developed. Others who were able to better channel their manic tendencies might be fully matured at twenty. Uwan was obviously a case of the latter.

  The leader stopped in front of the lines. Above his head, the unblinking white eye shone down on the scene.

  “Welcome, my new recruits,” he said, his voice carrying over the crowd of shadar-kai men and women. “You are here this day because you all share a common desire.” He paused, his gaze roving over the gathered throng. Briefly, his eyes passed over Ashok but did not linger. “Do you know what you all have in common?” Uwan asked.

  Silence from the gathering.

  “None of you?” Uwan asked. With his hand resting on his great-sword’s hilt, he paced up and down the lines. He stopped in front of a young man. “You,” he said. “Tell me why you have come here.”

  The young one gazed up at Uwan, wide-eyed and stuck. The intensity of his leader’s gaze numbed him silent.

  “Speak!” Uwan cried. “Or if you will not-” With both hands he grasped the man’s shirt and ripped the fabric away. The shirt fell in torn halves around the shadar-kai’s waist.

  The man’s pale gray skin shone dully in the half-light. Glistening weevil scars traced crooked lines horizontally and vertically across his back. His bare arms were cut and scarred as well, and from elbow to wrist his skin was mottled by bruises.

  Uwan stood back and spread his arms. “This is why you’re here, recruits,” he said.

  With all eyes in the crowd upon him, the young man instinctively grabbed for his ruined shirt to cover himself. Uwan grasped his wrists.

  “Don’t hide yourself. You are shadar-kai!” He raised the man’s arms above their heads. With their hands joined, Uwan stared into the young one’s eyes. “The battles we have fought leave many scars,” he said. “Never be ashamed of these marks you bear, for they are wrought by the deadliest foe the shadar-kai have ever known.” He dropped his hands to the man’s shoulders. “Tell me, warrior, who inflicted these wounds?”

  The man met Uwan’s unwavering stare. His chin rose. “I did, Lord Uwan,” he replied.

  Uwan nodded and stepped back. He gazed out over the crowd, but he had them. Nothing else existed except their leader. “Just so,” Uwan said. “To be shadar-kai is to be at war with our very selves! Is it fate that damns us so? The gods? No.

  “Our sires and dams were Shadovar. You know their names. They of the empire of Netheril-humans who lived so long in the plane of shadow that their offspring were born of shadowstuff. Our bodies are the vessel, but they are poor sanctuaries, friends, mistake me not. These fleshly constructs cannot hope to contain the shadows that are part of us and that would scatter to the winds were we not vigilant in restraining their flight.”

  Drawing a dagger from his belt, Uwan raised his forearm and put the blade against his bare flesh. “This is what you all have in common, and why you have come here today. This war you fight with yourselves every waking moment of your lives.

  “To be shadar-kai is to need. Every base instinct, every opportunity for stimulation seized.” He pressed his blade, and a thread of blood ran down his arm. “We crave the pain, anything to heighten our awareness, to bind our souls to this form, while the siren song of the shadow seeks to draw us to oblivion. She sings to us constantly, and our souls hear her. If we grow complacent, friends, we greet our doom.”

  A cry of agreement came from somewhere in the crowd and was picked up along the line of warriors until they all shouted in assent.

  “Do not despair, friends!” Uwan said, holding up a hand for silence. “Today marks a new beginning in your battle. You are no longer alone in this struggle. I will walk the path with you, but even that will not be enough.”

  Cries of protest rose from the crowd. Uwan held up his hands again. “No, friends, listen, listen!” he called. “I too, hear the cry from the shadows. I too, seek the pain, but the blood I shed is in service to a greater master than me.” Uwan pounded his fists against his chest. “This vessel I pledge to Tempus!”

  “Tempus!” A deafening swell of noise burst from the assembly. The warriors pounded their own chests and stamped the ground. Ashok thought that had they possessed weapons, they would have struck the air with blades in praise to the warrior god.

  Beside him, Cree and Skagi took up the cry. The training yard was alive; the iron fence trembled with the force of shadar-kai devotion. Only Ashok remained silent, but he was not unaffected by the assault.

  His heart pounded at the raw power and devotion of the assembled warriors. Ashok could not remember a time when he had been so stimulated and had not been in pain. With his speech, Uwan had every one of the warriors in his thrall. To the shadar-kai, he might have been Tempus embodied.

  “In this place,” Uwan said, when the crowd had settled enough for voices to be heard again, “you will train to fight, but you will also learn discipline, trust, and service.” He took off his cloak, went to the scarred man, and threw the cloak around his bare shoulders. The young one looked up at his leader in awe. Uwan smiled at him.

  “Your first duty is to protect your city,” Uwan said to the warriors. “You are new recruits, but if you take well the lessons of your teachers, you will rise in the ranks. Some of you may become Camborr, the breakers of beasts; or Guardian, the soldiery that protects our city. You may choose to become teachers yourselves. Some of you may even become my Sworn.”

  “What are the Sworn?” Ashok asked Cree.

  “His most trusted advisors,” Cree explained in a low voice. “The Watching Blade has a council of advisors, representatives from the trade houses and the other races that dwell here. But the Sworn, like Neimal, are his military advisors.”

  “Is that what you aspire to be?” Ashok asked.

  “It’s what everyone aspires to be,” Skagi said.

  “Remember this, as you begin your training,” Uwan said. “Only those who prove themselves worthy will bear the mark of Tempus. Fight well-against your foes and against yourselves-and you will be rewarded. Your bodies now belong to me. Use them in service to Ikemmu, and I will mark you with Tempus’s sword.” He held up his bloody arm. “Put not the dagger to your flesh, lest you be made weak. Weakness will not serve this city. Weakness will not serve us.”

>   Uwan drew his sword from its scabbard. The blade glinted silver and black in the half-light. He raised it high.

  “May Tempus drive out the weakness from our bodies and silence the siren’s call! Our lives are now His, and with our deaths we go not to the shadowed oblivion, but to His side to fight forevermore.”

  “Tempus!”

  The cry shook the air. Ashok looked up to see a colony of bats take flight from the tower, wheeling to escape the divine storm. The warriors cried their god’s name and Uwan’s, and before the storm passed, Uwan sheathed his sword and walked back inside the tower.

  Ashok found he’d been holding his breath, one hand clutching the iron fence. He let go the air and iron. Skagi was watching him.

  “Do you still want to meet him?” he asked. His tone tried for amusement, but his face glowed with the same fervor Ashok felt coursing in his blood.

  With an effort, Ashok cleared his head. Despite his excitement, he knew his situation had not changed. He was a prisoner, and if they were truly going to take him to see Uwan, the leader of the enclave, he had to be ready to act. He would find out what his captors wanted from him, or he would die. Since it appeared he could not escape, there could be no other outcome.

  “Take me,” Ashok said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When they got inside Tower Athanon, all Ashok saw were shadar-kai warriors. He recognized many of them from the training yard. They stood in groups, talking, arguing, sometimes wrestling their disagreements out on the floor, but Ashok got the impression it was done half in competition, half in jest. There was no violence to their movements, and nobody drew a weapon.

  It stunned him that so many shadar-kai would gather in one space, where a knife might find someone’s back so easily. In the caves of his enclave, the narrow tunnels provided a buffer that kept large groups from forming. There was always a wall to put your back against, and Ashok had learned to use the tunnels to his advantage.

  While they walked up a spiral stair, Ashok counted ten levels of recruits and their living quarters. The next four were a series of heavy doors guarded by helmed and plate-armored shadar-kai. They were obviously not new recruits. Skagi said they were all Guardians: soldiers in charge of the city’s defenses.