Delaying no longer, Kian tugged his short horse bow free of its leather case on the back of his saddle, and kicked his mount into a gallop. With practiced efficiency, he strung the bow’s thick limbs as he rode. He offered the night a hard smile when he heard the thundering of hooves behind him, and the ululating battle cries of the Asra a’Shah. It was not that he relished the idea of battle, but rather he was glad that he rushed to fight men, and not a demonic horde risen from the Thousand Hells.
His company had ridden over half the distance to the outcrop when an arrow sailed out of the night and scored a painful cut across Kian’s forearm. Silhouetted once again by firelight, the woman in the rocks paused her renewed attack to watch for the newcomers. Kian paid her little heed, for the faintly illuminated Bashye were now scrambling for deeper cover among the boulders below her.
In a single fluid motion, Kian nocked, drew, and released. His arrow ripped through the air with force enough to knock the target off his feet. From both sides of Kian, the Asra a’Shah released a volley with their longer bows, and nearly two dozen arrows whistled amongst the stones, skewering or scattering the rest of the Bashye.
Then the company was charging past. They left the road and wheeled in two separate columns, and came thundering back. Kian called a halt just out of bowshot. Nothing was moving amid the boulders.
“Hazad, Azuri, with me. Ba’Sel,” he said to the Geldainian mercenary, “you and your men spread out. Follow us until you are within range, then halt. If you see anyone moving besides us and the woman, end them.”
The black-skinned man was nodding before Kian stopped speaking, and used hand signals to position his men. When Kian was satisfied that any Bashye foolish enough to show himself would die, he motioned Azuri and Hazad forward.
Without needing a command, Hazad and Azuri angled their horses away from Kian, who continued to slowly ride forward. Across the road from the towering pile of boulders, horses shifted around in the gloom. Without question, they belonged to the Bashye. He hazarded a quick glance over his shoulder, searching for the handful of Asra a’Shah on that side of the road. He was comforted to see that two of the mercenaries had found the enemy’s mounts, and were peering into the darkness for anyone guarding them.
When Kian decided they had come close enough, he halted Hazad and Azuri. Other than a gentle breeze rustling nearby bushes and carrying the scent of acrid smoke from the marshes, all was quiet, motionless. Bashye, for all their ruthless ways and renegade hearts, were brilliant fighters. He did not take them lightly.
“Do you see anything?” Kian called in a overloud voice, ensuring another arrow was securely nocked to his bowstring.
Understanding that he was trying to draw out the enemy, Hazad and Azuri both answered, “No,” in the same exaggerated manner.
Kian waited, letting his eyes rove the darkness, back and forth. Nothing moved amongst the shadowed boulders. If he did not miss his mark, the Bashye had fled. Above, silhouetted by the dwindling light of fire arrows, the woman continued to look down at him.
Kian called up to her, “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she answered. Then, hesitantly, she amended, “Well, actually, yes I am.”
She sounded young, but she was no wisp of girl, if her womanly shape outlined by the firelight told him anything. He imagined her ambiguous response was the product of absolute terror.
Or insanity, he reconsidered uneasily, thinking again of how she had twice placed herself in mortal danger of Bashye arrows. With the way things had been since Varis came out of that temple, it would be just his luck to have to carry a woman to Oratz whose mind had come unraveled.
“Well,” he said, almost hating to ask, lest she truly was mad, “do you need help?”
After a long moment, she muttered something.
“Speak up!”
“Yes, I need help!” she shouted, not sounding hurt in the least, and ungrateful besides.
Kian looked to Azuri, but the man pointedly ignored him. Next, he glanced at Hazad, who shook his head. Neither man, it seemed, was ready to obey an order to retrieve the woman.
“Traitorous bastards,” he growled under his breath, swinging out of the saddle. He ignored their soft laughter.
Not wishing to dither, he trotted along, relishing the feel of stretching his legs. It took little time to scamper up the path wending through the boulders. When he was within a dozen paces of the woman, who was staring down at him with an air that he should have come faster, something moved off to one side.
Kian wheeled as a Bashye reared up from behind a boulder, his face a mask of blood. The broken end of an arrow shaft jutted from one eye socket, and the other end poked out from his temple to disappear behind his ear. His good eye burned with hatred, as he slashed his sword in a downward arc. Kian flung up his bow, wood shattered under the blow, and he toppled backward with a shout, the two ends of his severed bow held in either hand. He landed hard on his back, jarring every bone against unyielding sandstone. The Bashye leapt with a fierce cry, even as Kian rolled clear and clattered down amongst the boulders. The man’s steel sparked against the stone where his neck had been.
Kian tried to gain his feet, but was horrified to find one of his ankles was caught between two rocks. He wrenched at it, trying to get loose, but the angles were all wrong. He need to go uphill to get free, yet he was all but hanging upside down. With an air of victory, the Bashye crept forward, grinning.
“Shoot him!” Kian bellowed, knowing his men would hesitate because the renegade was so close to him.
Not waiting to see if they would heed his command, Kian tried to free his sword, but the weapon was pinned under his backside. The man eased closer while Kian struggled, sword raised with the obvious intention of hacking off Kian’s leg. At the last moment, Kian found his dagger, drew it, and threw. The same instant Kian’s blade soared past the man’s twisting body, the woman fired an arrow that blossomed from the Bashye’s throat. The wild fury in his good eye became a look of bemusement, as he fingered the steel barb lodged in his neck. His sword fell away with a ringing clatter, and he toppled out of sight.
A moment later, the woman appeared where the Bashye had been. Using her bow as a crutch, she limped down and around the curve of a large boulder, gritting her teeth in obvious pain. Though the light of the fire-arrows were erratic, Kian found himself forgetting his near brush with death and blinking in surprise. Though tattered and torn, and covered in road dust, she was a beauty out of a love story.
“You were supposed to help me,” she said, sounding both irritated and breathless, “not the other way around.”
The spell of her looks broken by her hard tone, Kian glowered. “You could have warned me there was a man waiting to take my head off!”
“Only a fool would have assumed there were no dangers about,” she replied blandly, taking hold of his wrist and heaving him into a sitting position. “Bashye are not given to fleeing a fight.”
At that moment the sounds of struggle—clashing swords, a scream of agony, curses and grunts of effort—came to them from the desert floor. Just as quickly, all fell silent. Kian and the woman waited, listening.
“That seems to be the last of them,” Azuri called up a few moments later, only a little out of breath.
“Be sure,” Kian shouted back. It worried him that he and his men had made so many out of character mistakes during this skirmish, even as he knew that he and his men needed, at the least, a good night’s rest.
Pushing that aside, he belatedly dislodged his ankle. Where the rocks had held his weight, now it fell to the woman. Her grasp slipped, and she stumbled back and sat down with a shuddering cry. Kian rolled to his feet and went to her, seeing for the first time the blood coating her robes. White robes.
“You’re a Sister of Najihar,” he said, incredulous. Why would a such a woman be in the desert, alone, in the middle of the night?
She looked at him with pain-glazed eyes, and nodded.
Shaking away his surpri
se, he knelt beside her. “You’re bleeding. Have you been stabbed, or was it an arrow?”
“Arrow,” she murmured through clenched teeth. Shock made her as pallid as one of the northern-born, though she had the features and hair coloring of one born in the southern realms.
Kian eased her onto her back. Her eyes fluttered and showed the whites. “Stay awake,” he said. He had to stop the bleeding, quickly.
She mumbled something, but he did not hear. He drew her dagger and sawed at the hem of her robes, cutting off a broad swath to use as a bandage. He hesitated only a moment, then loosened her belt and pushed the robes open, noted her feminine curves, then studiously focused on her wounds—a man he may be, but this was no time to act the lecher. The arrow had passed through the flesh covering her ribs, and the gash was bleeding profusely. The good of it was that the wound was not deadly, unless corruption sank in.
“By the gods good and wise,” Hazad blurted from behind. “What are you doing, having your way with the poor girl?”
“Give me some jagdah!” Kian snapped.
Coming closer, Hazad grunted when he saw her wounds, and quickly handed over a skin of the Izutarian spirits. Kian wrenched the cork free and poured a liberal amount of the clear liquid over the wound. As blood sluiced away, the woman sat up with scream, flailing her hands at what surely felt like fire sinking into her flesh. Kian cursed only half as loud as Hazad when a wild blow sent the skin of jagdah flying, squirting the precious spirits onto the ground.
As softly as he could, Kian leaned his weight on the woman, forcing her back down. “I must stop the bleeding,” he said, trying for a gentle tone, but failing. He was used to dealing with wounded men. If a man lost his wits to pain, you could always backhand him to silence.
She ceased her struggles and closed her eyes, breathing hard.
Taking the long swath he had cut from her robes, he tore off a large square, folded it several times, soaked it with jagdah snatched from Hazad’s protective hand, and pressed it against her side. Next, he draped the remaining length of material over her belly and tucked it far under her back. Urging her to arch up, he grasped the end under her back and pulled it out the other side. Keeping the folded bandage firmly against her skin, he wrapped the swath tight, tied a knot, and tucked away the loose ends.
With the crisis seemingly averted, he pulled the edges of her robe together, covering her nakedness, careful to keep his eyes on her face. Gods good and wise, he thought distractedly, she is beautiful. “This will have to do, until we get you to Oratz,” he said aloud.
She murmured something indistinct, forcing him to lean in close. She spoke again, but he still could not hear her. He bent over until her lips were against his ear. “What did you say?”
Her breath was warm against his skin, but her halting words chilled his veins. When she stopped speaking, he sat up. Absently, he reaffixed her belt.
“What is it?” Hazad asked, noting the disturbed look on Kian’s face.
The mercenary captain looked out over the darkness to the south, his mind seeking answers to questions that seemingly had no rational response.
What is happening? Is this all because of what one misguided youth has done … or something more?
“Kian,” Hazad said, looking uneasy, “what did she say?”
“She has come from Fortress Krevar,” Kian said, voice hollow. He did not know the exact numbers, but he knew there were several thousand folk living along Aradan’s western border. They were a tough people, hardened by desert life and the constant worry over defending against Bashye and Tureecian raiders. “From Yuzzika to Oratz, she said, all along the road between, everyone has been … slaughtered,” he finished, using her word.
If not for what he’d seen with his own eyes at El’hadar, he would have disbelieved. Even still, he did not want to believe, but until the sister spoke more, he had no choice but to accept that the western border folk of Aradan had been all but eradicated.
Chapter 21
Though the night had been one long ride followed by a short, violent battle, Kian awoke before dawn was fully born, having scarcely slept. The desert was cold at night, and the bed it provided was all stone and grit.
Uncomfortable as he was, Kian remained on his back, thinking that he had not felt so out of sorts since he had been a child alone on the Falsethian streets of Marso. In length of years, surviving those dangerous coastal streets and alleys had not been all that long ago, but he had lived three lifetimes in experience since that first lost and lonely day. He had not enjoyed feeling adrift and frightened then, and he liked it less now, all the more because he did not know what caused his present uncertainty. It seemed as if some part of his mind was coming awake and trying to warn him of some lurking danger in a language he did not understand.
He abruptly sat up and scanned the desert, unconsciously searching for threats. All was quiet and still. He noted with approval that three Asra a’Shah formed the points of a broad triangle around the crude camp. He had no doubt that each man on watch had stood so with their fullest attention. While an Asra a’Shah was the worth of any three men, the Bashye were crafty, ruthless, and fearless fighters who commonly bested their foes with inferior numbers and weapons. That aside, they would face their greatest foe, should they ever think to attack Kian’s company while he had Asra a’Shah in his employ.
To the east the sky was a deep, muddy crimson that he was rapidly becoming used to. It seemed the smoke of the Qaharadin’s burning would never clear. To the still dark west, the fires raging in the swamp cast a dull orange glow skyward. Without question, the breadth of those fires was growing larger by the day. As to any unexpected menace, there was no sign, though the sensation of trouble had not lessened.
He turned his head on a stiff neck and found the Sister of Najihar looking at him with eyes as dark and cool as a pond in a midnight forest. Despite himself, he swallowed. He could not conceive what peril she might pose, but he suddenly felt sure she was the source of his strange anxiety, at least in part.
Telling himself he was acting the fool, he studied her features. Though the morning light was weak, her normal dark coloring was back, which had to be a good sign. That was where his scrutiny fell apart. He simply could not watch her watching him. She was not the first Sister of Najihar he had ever come across, and she was hardly the first pretty woman he’d had contact with, but there was something about her, a quality that made him want to saddle his mount and ride away, as if from an approaching storm. At the same instant, he wanted to take her in his arms and… .
“How are you feeling?” he asked brusquely, pushing aside amorous thoughts.
“Better,” she said, her voice slightly raspy. “Do you have water?”
He tossed his dusty blanket aside and retrieved a waterskin. As he was holding it to her lips, it struck him that he was behaving like a servant, which would simply not do. Sisters of Najihar might hold sway in Aradan, but elsewhere they were thought to be more spies than scholars, which was why they tended to remain anonymous, posing as healers and the like. They were not hated, for their healing ways and insights were almost magical, but neither were they entirely trusted in lands outside of Aradan—or even in Aradan, for that matter. At any rate, he did not want to set a precedent by fetching and carrying for her.
“Take it,” he said gruffly, tossing the skin into her lap.
She gave him a bemused look, and he walked a few paces away, showing her his back.
Without question, she was attractive, but he’d be damned if he was about to start bowing and scraping to a comely face. If he wanted to make an idiot of himself over a woman, he could just as easily get well and drunk in some bawdy winehouse, toss a few bits of silver at a wench, and behave as he would without regret.
Winehouses … wenches? He shook his head in irritation, at odds with the way his mind seemed to be jumping about.
Looking out over the now glowing eastern horizon and scratching at his stubbed jaw, he grudgingly admitted he was
losing his normal poise. Just as quickly, he convinced himself it had nothing to do with the woman, but rather the simple truth that the world had gone absolutely mad. What with the quakes, raging infernos, and demons running about, a man had a right to be put out of sorts by even the mundane things in life. And, too, he had to face the truth that something in him had changed when that tongue of blue fire had snaked out from the temple and touched him.
After a long moment, she said, “I am Sister Ellonlef Khala.”
Reluctantly, Kian turned. She had dribbled water over her chin and chest. “I am Kian Valara,” he answered. Her eyes flared at that, which seemed strange, for it appeared that his name had brought not just recognition but something more.
Pushing the thought aside, along with his ridiculous aversion to accommodating her needs, he squatted down and dug through his panniers for something to dry her off. The best he could find was a not-so-clean tunic. When he straightened, she was still staring at him with deep curiosity and, perhaps, a touch of mistrust … or was it fear?
“Something wrong?” he asked, irritated. He dropped his tunic into her lap and waited for a response.
Instead of answering right away, she scrutinized the camp and his small party, dabbing at her chest with the tunic. One by one, men tossed aside their blankets and rose to stretch away stiffness from their bones.
“For a man seeking to usurp the Ivory Throne,” she said offhandedly, “you seem short of warriors.”
Kian’s mouth fell open, stunned. “The way you fought the Bashye last night, standing in the open and making a perfect target of yourself, I knew you were mad,” he snapped.
The God King (Heirs of the Fallen (Book 1)) Page 15