Forged In Flame (In Her Name: The First Empress, Book 2)

by Hicks, Michael R.

  The thought was almost enough to crush her spirit, but then she remembered that Dara-Kol had spent years wandering these lands, and had somehow not only survived, but retained her sanity.

  As they gained the top of a particularly tall and steep ridge, Keel-Tath glanced back to the east, marveling at how much the landscape looked like sun-baked scales.

  She saw something moving, and not very far away. Dark but instantly recognizable shapes. For a moment, she thought she was seeing things, but they did not go away, even after she had looked away and back three times.

  “Warriors!”

  The others spun around, and Dara-Kol ran to her side, looking where Keel-Tath pointed.

  “It is not possible,” she breathed.

  “But you said they would find a guide to lead them through these lands.”

  Dara-Kol shook her head. “A guide could lead them and keep them alive, mostly, but not track us through the wastelands. I have been very careful to clear our trail. We have left no trace that another could follow, except perhaps a warrior of Ka’i-Nur.”

  “Then how…?”

  With a look, Dara-Kol silenced her, and Keel-Tath felt a knot of mingled fear and anger form in her stomach. We have been betrayed.

  The lead enemy warriors gestured, and it was clear they had seen their intended prey.

  “This could get interesting very quickly,” Ba’dur-Khan said, fingering the handle of his sword.

  “Mistress, come with me,” Dara-Kol said. “The rest of you, move ahead to the next rise and wait.”

  “What are you…” Drakh-Nur began.

  “Do as she commands!” Keel-Tath snapped. The others instantly saluted and obeyed.

  Dara-Kol led Keel-Tath through a copse of jagged stone spires that shielded them from the eyes of the enemy warriors.

  “What are we doing?” Keel-Tath asked as she loped along behind Dara-Kol, who had wound her way down to a gully that ran parallel to the one that bounded the ridge where they had just been.

  “Setting an ambush, mistress.”

  As she followed Dara-Kol, Keel-Tath took momentary relief at the startlingly cool shadows at the bottom of the gully. The respite ended all too quickly as Dara-Kol once again led her out into the sun. She slowed, and was now creeping stealthily up toward the ridge near a junction of the two gullies. Keel-Tath heard the footfalls and urgent calls of the warriors who now were chasing after their companions, somewhere up ahead.

  Laying on their bellies, they poked their heads over the ridge and saw the column of warriors approaching rapidly. In the gully from which the two had emerged, there were small bulges in the face of the ridge. It was the same one that Dara-Kol had guided the group away from just minutes before.

  Dara-Kol took a shrekka from her shoulder, and nodded at Keel-Tath to do the same.

  “We should have brought Ri’al-Char’rah with us,” Keel-Tath said. “She is much better with a shrekka. I am not sure I can hit the hive from here.”

  “I will trust you with no one until I know who betrayed us.” Dara-Kol’s voice was low and fierce. “Are you ready?”

  Holding the shrekka tight, Keel-Tath nodded.

  “Now!”

  The two of them rose up, took aim, and hurled their weapons at the hive, which was already crawling with churr-kamekh that had been disturbed by the vibrations of the approaching warriors.

  Keel-Tath’s shrekka fell slightly short and gouged a hole in the bottom of one of the bulges. Water, precious water, streamed out into the gully.

  Dara-Kol’s hit true, slicing through the thin wall to lodge itself deep in the nest.

  The side of the hive crumbled away as the churr-kamekh burrowed their way out in a killing frenzy.

  “Be still!” Dara-Kol whispered, and Keel-Tath, who was on the verge of running for her life, froze.

  The tiny beasts formed a living river as thousands of them flowed down the side of the ridge and into the gully, straight for the queen’s warriors, who were now pounding at a full run to catch up to Keel-Tath’s companions, who had disappeared over the ridge.

  The lead warriors stumbled as they ran into the swirling mass of churr-kamekh, then screamed as the creatures engulfed them, stinging with their long barbed tails and biting exposed flesh with their mandibles. The warriors coming along behind, perhaps thinking they had been ambushed, surged forward, swords at the ready.

  They, too, were quickly covered by the tiny, enraged creatures.

  Keel-Tath shuddered at the sound. It was not only the screams, but the clicking-hissing noises made by the creatures as they attacked.

  “Pull back!” It was a voice that Keel-Tath recognized. Shil-Wular. “Withdraw! Now!”

  Dara-Kol patted her on the shoulder. “It is time for us to go.”

  Instead of heading right to the others, as Keel-Tath expected, Dara-Kol led her down into the gully toward the hive.

  “What are you doing?” Keel-Tath could not help but be terrified.

  “When the hive attacks, all but the queen and a small group of special warriors, guardians, leave the nest. The water is safe to take for as long as the rest of the hive is occupied.”

  Letting her trust in Dara-Kol displace her own fear, Keel-Tath followed until the two of them were right below the breach in the hive made by Keel-Tath’s shrekka.

  The two of them uncapped their water bags and held the openings to the water that still streamed from the hive. In short order, the bags were full.

  “Come,” Dara-Kol said. The screams in the other gully were fading. “The churr-kamekh will be returning soon.”

  With their bounty of water slung over their backs, they ran to rejoin the others.

  ***

  Throughout the rest of the day, there was no sign of the queen’s warriors. Dara-Kol drove her charges mercilessly, taking breaks in the cool shadows of a handy gully only when Han-Ukha’i, who was not conditioned to such hardships, could go no farther.

  Much to Keel-Tath’s surprise, Dara-Kol had not brought up the subject of treachery with the others. But there was no mistaking the penetrating gaze she gave each of the companions after they had rejoined the group, and she never let Keel-Tath stray more than a sword’s length from her side.

  As evening came and the others looked forward to a much-needed break, Dara-Kol had another surprise for them.

  “We will push on through the night,” she said to an incredulous group. Han-Ukha’i visibly sagged, but said nothing. The others, even Lihan-Hagir, groaned.

  “May I ask why?” Ba’dur-Khan said, his voice carefully neutral. “You said we were much more likely to be attacked by predators. And from the sounds we have heard in the night since entering the wastelands, I can see why you advocated that caution. What now causes you to set it aside?”

  “We need to increase the lead we have on those pursuing us. Traveling at night will also make it much more difficult for them to track us.” She paused. “We will also head northwest for a few days. They know we are heading for the coast, for there is nowhere else to go in the wastelands other than Ka’i-Nur, which lies southwest of us. Hopefully this little diversion will help us elude them.”

  The others turned to look at Keel-Tath. “It will be as Dara-Kol says,” she told them firmly. “It will be difficult, but perhaps we will be able to take some rest in the morning.”

  Dara-Kol nodded. “We will find a safe gully where it is cool, and I will find another hive where we can all refill our water bags.” While Dara-Kol and Keel-Tath had filled theirs and shared them around, the others were running perilously low.

  “Let us go, then,” Keel-Tath said. “It is going to be a long night.”

  ***

  In the darkness, their way lit only by the stars, for the Great Moon had not yet risen, the companions threaded their way through the endless forest of treacherous rock. They moved slowly and with great caution, making as little noise as possible. Around them, through the gullies and canyons, echoed the grunts and squeals of the things that
had emerged from their daytime lairs to hunt. These were the most dangerous creatures of their world outside the oceans, for here there were no prey animals, only predators that fed on other predators.

  “Dara-Kol,” Drakh-Nur said as the group huddled to partake of some dried meat and water, “why are we heading to the southwest? You said we would be going northwest. I know how to read the stars, and we have been going in the wrong direction.”

  The others stopped chewing the tough meat and stared at their guide. Keel-Tath watched their expressions, looking for anything amiss, some clue as to the one who had betrayed them, but she could tell nothing. She could see their faces well enough in the dark, but they all showed equal measures of surprise.

  “Yes, I did. But after some thought I decided that heading in the direction of Ka’i-Nur would be best. It is the home of the Dark Queen, and they would not expect us to go any closer to it than we must.”

  “Thank you for letting us know.” Ri’al-Char’rah huffed as she took another bite of her meat.

  “What difference would it make?” Keel-Tath tore off a strip of meat and stuffed it into her mouth. It was tough as the leatherite armor she wore and salty, but her mouth was awash in saliva, she was so hungry. “None of us know the way, so knowing the direction we take matters little.”

  The others bowed to her logic, but they fell silent, unhappy.

  When they were finished, Dara-Kol got them up and moving again. She and Keel-Tath had to help Han-Ukha’i to her feet.

  “I am sorry, my mistress,” the healer said, and Keel-Tath could feel the echo of her shame in her blood. “I do not wish to be a burden.”

  “That is the last thing you are in my eyes,” Keel-Tath told her. “I owe you a debt I can never repay.”

  As usual, Dara-Kol took the lead, and they trudged onward. Keel-Tath was behind her, followed by Han-Ukha’i, then the hulking Drakh-Nur, Ba’dur-Khan, Ri’al-Char’rah, with Lihan-Hagir bringing up the rear.

  Perhaps an hour had passed when Lihan-Hagir appeared at Dara-Kol’s side, making urgent gestures with his hands. Keel-Tath could see that his head was bleeding from a gash in his temple.

  “Stop,” Dara-Kol whispered to the others.

  Keel-Tath leaned closer, watching the mute warrior gesture. “What does he say?”

  “Ri’al-Char’rah is gone.”

  “How can she be gone?” Drakh-Nur rumbled, and Keel-Tath gestured for him to keep his voice down. He lowered his voice to what, for him, qualified as a whisper. “She cannot have simply disappeared!”

  Looking back at Lihan-Hagir, Dara-Kol said, “She did not just disappear. Lihan-Hagir says she attacked him, then fled our company to find Shil-Wular and his warriors.” Bitterness clouded her voice and the song of her blood. “She has betrayed us to the Dark Queen.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Betrayal

  “How…how can this be true?” Ba’dur-Khan looked ill as Han-Ukha’i tended Lihan-Hagir’s wound. “And why? What could compel her to betray us?”

  “We may never know,” Keel-Tath said, trying to come to grips with her own disbelief. She had not known Ri’al-Char’rah well, of course, but nothing the young warrior had ever done or said, nothing in the song of her blood, had given the slightest indication that she was anything more or less than what she appeared to be. She turned to Dara-Kol. “What is important is what we do now.”

  “I say we turn northwest,” Drakh-Nur suggested. “She will know that we are heading this direction, and will so say to Shil-Wular. Going northwest will throw them off our trail and put the most distance between us.”

  “Why not simply go west, directly toward the sea?” Ba’dur-Khan countered. “We are wasting too much time with this diversion. If the queen sends enough warriors into the wastelands, she will eventually find us. Our only hope is to simply outdistance them and reach the coast as quickly as we can.”

  “Both of those paths have merit,” Dara-Kol told them. “One thing is for certain: we dare not stay on our present course.” She turned to Keel-Tath. “Which path would you choose, mistress?”

  Keel-Tath swallowed, not expecting to be faced with this particular decision. So far on this trek, they had placed their lives entirely in Dara-Kol’s hands. “I think…” She frowned, considering. “I believe we should head west. If the land were not so harsh, I would be more inclined to follow Drakh-Nur’s counsel. But every day we spend here is an agony for us all, with death close at hand even when trying to obtain water. Let us push hard to the west and leave the queen’s warriors behind us, hopefully heading southwest, in the wrong direction.”

  “So shall it be done.” With one last look behind them, Dara-Kol turned to the west and resumed the cautious march through the dark wastelands.

  With heavy hearts, the others followed behind her.

  ***

  Other than short breaks to eat and take a drink of their precious water, Dara-Kol did not let them rest for another two full days. Han-Ukha’i passed out several times, and Drakh-Nur carried her.

  At last, they reached an especially high ridge near dusk. Dara-Kol left them there while she scouted ahead. Keel-Tath, who was so exhausted she could barely stand, marveled at how Dara-Kol was still able to function. Nothing seemed to slow her down. The others were in somewhat better shape than Keel-Tath, but she could tell that even Drakh-Nur was nearing the end of his endurance.

  After nearly an hour, judging from the positions of the stars, and just when Keel-Tath was getting worried, Dara-Kol returned.

  “Come,” she said, beckoning them to follow. She led them down into an arroyo, then up the other side toward the telltale bulges of a large churr-kamekh hive. This one, however, had been ripped open. “It is empty. Sometimes a genoth, when desperate, will attack a hive for water and to eat the churr-kamekh larvae and the queen.”

  “I thought you said the churr-kamekh can kill a genoth,” Keel-Tath breathed as she staggered up the steep slope toward the hive.

  Dara-Kol stopped and pointed farther down the arroyo, where a set of huge bones lay, gleaming orange in the fading sunlight. “So they can. But if the genoth takes enough of the water or kills the queen, the hive dies. Other predators will often take over an empty hive for a lair, but in this case there was only a nest of gret-kamekh. We will be eating fresh meat tonight.”

  Later, as they sat in the cool, dark cavern of the gutted hive, they feasted on the four gret-kamekh Dara-Kol had killed. The beasts had long, membranous wings that spanned the height of a warrior and could carry the creatures many leagues through the air, and when found in numbers they could be deadly. But these four, resting before taking wing in the night, were no match for Dara-Kol’s sword. The meat was tough and greasy, but Keel-Tath had never tasted anything so good in her life.

  None of the companions had the strength to carry on a conversation, nor was there anything to say. Once they sated themselves on the meat and the water from the hive’s cistern, they collapsed, exhausted.

  The last thing Keel-Tath saw before she closed her eyes was Dara-Kol, watching her.

  ***

  In Keel-Tath’s dream, the Homeworld was being torn apart. Great cities, fantastic constructs of pyramids, domes, and spires that reached high into the sky, were shattered by titanic explosions. Some of the energy was absorbed by the shields created by the builders, but it was not enough to avert disaster. Not nearly enough. One by one, the cities were reduced to rubble in the glare of fireballs that reached from the ground into near space, and with each one, millions of lives were snuffed out, their songs erased from Keel-Tath’s blood in an instant.

  The Great Moon overhead was not the dead artifact Keel-Tath had always known. A billion souls lived there, as they had for thousands of years, in cities every bit as grand as those on the Homeworld itself. But these, too, were being destroyed. Explosions bloomed across the moon’s face, and the bombardment did not stop until every life there had been extinguished, every city destroyed, every structure reduced to dust. The moon g
lowed orange and red where its crust had been ruptured, leaving wounds that would not close for several thousand years.

  In the space around the Homeworld and the Great Moon were thousands of warships in a dance of death, an orgy of slaughter the likes of which her race had never known. And though it was beyond her sight, she knew that similar devastation was occurring on the worlds of the Settlements, far away among the stars.

  There was no strategy now, no plan for victory, for any hope of winning this war had long since fled. The warring factions knew that the only thing awaiting them was destruction, and their only hope was that they could destroy their enemies before they themselves fell into the abyss. None of those doing the fighting now, at the end of the Second Age, could even remember how the war, this final annihilation, began. They only knew how it must end.

  The people, those who fought and those who were victims of the fighting, had prayed to the old gods for deliverance, but the old gods had betrayed them. The people cursed the gods, and as the end loomed near, the religion of old was destroyed as the people realized their gods were false, nothing more than wishful imagination. False gods could not save them.

  The final heaving cataclysms destroyed the wonders of the First and Second Ages, and only a few of the Settlements, which had once numbered in the hundreds, survived as more than glowing lumps of slag drifting in space. The Great Moon was nothing more than an ugly, scarred monument to the dead.

  As the heat and glare of the last weapons subsided, the ancient martial orders, which were once little more than curious sanctuaries for the socially challenged, emerged to salvage what was left of civilization. Harnessing the powers of the seven ancient crystals of power, so old that they were legend in the First Age, they set the survivors on the path of what became the Way. And while combat and war, which had always been in the blood of the people, remained a way of life, the bloodshed was held in balance, and the priesthoods would never allow the followers of the Way to totter on the brink of destruction.

  All these things Keel-Tath saw in her dream, even as she realized that it was not a dream, but memories from the living and beyond-the-dead eyes of Anuir-Ruhal’te. Keel-Tath could feel a sliver of the ancient oracle’s soul in hers, as surely as she could still feel the scar from where the shard of the crystal heart had sliced her palm. Anuir-Ruhal’te’s followers had spirited her away somehow to the underground crypt before the end of the Final Annihilation to keep her spirit safe until it was time for her to reveal herself once again. Only that time never came, because the vessel of her spirit was destroyed in the final fall of bombs upon the Homeworld.