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

by Hicks, Michael R.

  “This is not his hair,” she rasped. “It was bound to him by some dark art, the likes of which I have never seen.”

  “Give it to me.”

  Han-Ukha’i handed it to her, and as soon as Keel-Tath touched it, a wave of nausea crashed over her. In her blood she could sense the one who hated her, who had hunted her since the day she had been born.

  Syr-Nagath. It was her hair, somehow bonded to Lihan-Hagir like a parasite.

  ***

  Syr-Nagath jammed her fists to her temples and screamed in pain. Those gathered around her for the council of war sat back, stunned and afraid as their queen shot to her feet and staggered about the chamber.

  “Get out,” she finally rasped. “All of you, out!”

  Without a word, her vassals fled, sending fearful glances in her direction. Only her First remained, kneeling by the door.

  “Ale,” the Dark Queen croaked. “Then leave me.”

  The First quickly poured her a mug of ale, then departed, closing the doors quietly behind her.

  Now the white-haired whelp knows, Syr-Nagath thought, her blood boiling in barely controlled rage as she took a long swig of the bitter brew. She may not know the extent of the power I hold on the taken ones, but she knows they exist. She knew that if Keel-Tath revealed that secret to the priesthoods, they would no doubt seek Syr-Nagath’s own head. Assuming, of course, that they believed her.

  “No,” she assured herself. “They would not believe her unless they forced it from her.” Had a priest discovered the secret, it would have been different.

  But the priesthoods feared the child, and they had been pathetically easy to manipulate. She grinned, her face twisting into a feral expression that would have had her First shivering with terror. For all their proclaimed wisdom and power, the high priests and priestesses were like children who fell prey to nightmares after whispering fearful stories to them in the dark, when they should be truly afraid of the predator that silently stalked them. Keel-Tath was such an obvious threat to their ages-old Way, trumpeted by the prophecy of Anuir-Ruhal’te and that fool of a one-armed Desh-Ka priest, that they were completely blind to her own machinations.

  Yes, she thought. The whelp would know that Syr-Nagath had hidden eyes, ears, and claws. And while the child was beyond reach for now, the knowledge, in the end, would not save her from doom.

  ***

  Keel-Tath could sense the Dark Queen’s surprise, and in that instant of vulnerability Keel-Tath focused her rage and anguish through that momentary bridge between them, just as she had sent the underground river smashing through the ancient crypt of Anuir-Ruhal’te. She was rewarded with a sensation of shock and pain from her nemesis.

  Then, before Syr-Nagath had recovered, Keel-Tath balled up the hair and threw it out into the roaring water.

  “I am sorry, Han-Ukha’i, to ask that of you. But it was necessary. Now we know more about the enemy we face. Go now and rest.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  Keel-Tath helped the healer to her feet and led her back to where Dara-Kol and Drakh-Nur lay.

  “The Dark Queen somehow bound some of her hair to his third braid,” Keel-Tath told them. “That was how she controlled him, and I suspect that is how she controls those like Shil-Wular.”

  “Then there is a way to tell if someone has fallen under her spell?” Dara-Kol asked.

  “No,” Han-Ukha’i rasped. “I considered that when I discovered what she had done. But I examined Lihan-Hagir closely when I treated the wound to his head inflicted by Ri’al-Char’rah. All seven braids were as they should have been. Only in death would this deception be revealed.”

  “You are certain?”

  “Yes, mistress. There is no doubt.”

  The four of them were silent for a moment, before Keel-Tath stood and made her way to Ba’dur-Khan’s body. Kneeling beside him, putting her head on his chest, she said softly, “I am sorry, Ba’dur-Khan, so sorry. You saved our lives, and I cannot even give you a warrior’s funeral. But I will not leave your body here as a feast for the animals. I hope that your spirit may forgive me for what I have done, and what I must now do.”

  Taking hold of his hand, she dragged him to the hole in the side of the hive. Praying that there was truly an afterlife and that his soul would find its way, she rolled his body into the water and watched as it quickly disappeared, bobbing among the debris that was being carried downstream by the torrent.

  She stared after him for a long time, an idea slowly forming in her mind.

  ***

  The rain hammered down until well after dawn, when the light filtering through the dense clouds was just enough to see by.

  The arroyo was flush with water, which was running just below the entrance to the hive. It was moving more slowly now, or so it appeared as Keel-Tath watched. More debris had drifted by: a variety of animals, most of which she had never seen; some plants, also which she had never seen before; and even a few large tree branches with enormous leaves. Where they had come from in the wastelands, she could not hazard a guess.

  The others were still resting, and she dreaded having to rouse them. She had been unable to sleep, and her mind had been churning the entire time, an infernal calculating machine working on an insoluble problem.

  But there is a solution, she told herself. It is simply not a pleasant or elegant one.

  As the rain slowed to a light patter, she got to her feet and went to where the others lay. “Rise, my friends,” she said.

  Dara-Kol’s eyes blinked open, although it took her a moment to focus on Keel-Tath. Drakh-Nur, too, opened his eyes and groaned. Han-Ukha’i, however, remained sound asleep. Keel-Tath took her shoulder and gently shook her. With a moan, the healer awoke.

  “My mistress?” Dara-Kol asked, wincing as she propped herself up on her elbows.

  “I have a proposition,” Keel-Tath said. The others waited for her to go on. “We must assume that Lihan-Hagir left a trail, and that Shil-Wular will soon find this place.”

  “True, mistress,” Dara-Kol said, “but they must wait until the waters recede. Not even a genoth can travel far at the height of such a flood. But the waters will recede quickly.”

  “And who among us thinks we can outdistance Shil-Wular’s warriors once that happens? You and Drakh-Nur are still badly injured, and Han-Ukha’i is terribly weak. Our provisions are gone.” The others exchanged a look, surprised. “Yes, Lihan-Hagir threw our packs out, probably before he tried to kill Han-Ukha’i. That way, even if he failed to kill us in our sleep, we would likely starve.”

  “We can probably kill enough animals to keep ourselves alive,” Dara-Kol said, “but hunting the hunters in the wastelands is always a great risk.”

  Drakh-Nur sat up, suppressing a groan as he held his hand over his side. “What is it that you propose, mistress?”

  “That we use the flood waters to our advantage,” Keel-Tath told them. “That we let the water carry us toward the sea.”

  The others stared at her as if churr-kamekh had begun pouring from her mouth.

  “Keel-Tath,” Dara-Kol told her, “the waters indeed run toward the west and eventually reach the sea. But in between are rapids and waterfalls, and nearer the coast these canyons empty into one of two great rivers teeming with fish.”

  “We would leave the water long before then.” Keel-Tath frowned. “As for the rapids and waterfalls, all I know is that we will likely fare better against them than a cohort led by Shil-Wular. And I would rather die here in the wastelands than at the hand of the Dark Queen.”

  “The Way of the warrior is to die,” Drakh-Nur said. “I would prefer in battle, but I will follow you wherever you would go, mistress.”

  “And I.” Han-Ukha’i radiated intense fear, and Keel-Tath reached out and held her hands. “Death comes for us in the end, no matter what we do. But I would rather brave the waters outside than have my hair shorn for betraying Syr-Nagath.”

  “Your father and mother would be proud of you,” Dara-Kol sai
d, and Keel-Tath bowed her head.

  “We only have one difficulty to overcome,” Drakh-Nur said. “How to keep ourselves from drowning.”

  “I have an idea,” Keel-Tath said.

  Drakh-Nur glanced at Dara-Kol, a wry grin on his face as he bared his fangs. “And I cannot wait to hear it.”

  ***

  “Were there gods to pray to, I would ask them to wake me from this nightmare.” Drakh-Nur stood at the edge of the opening to the hive, staring at the water that was only an arm’s length below his feet. The edge of the rock was still slick, for the rain still fell sporadically, and trickles of water ran down to join the torrent. Above, the clouds still blocked the sun, and a heavy mist had settled upon the ridges surrounding the canyon.

  Han-Ukha’i clung to him, and he had one massive arm wrapped around her. She was clearly terrified. No doubt, Keel-Tath thought, from her earlier brush with death.

  Keel-Tath, on her other side, leaned close and said, “We can do this!”

  The healer nodded, but made no reply. Her eyes were fixed on the roiling dark brown water.

  Dara-Kol was on the other side of Keel-Tath, a grim expression on her face as she carefully watched the water.

  The three warriors had stripped out of their recently crafted armor and cast it all into the water. Han-Ukha’i had done the same with the rags that were all that was left of her once pristine robes. The four stood clothed only in their black undergarments and sandals. The three warriors carried only their swords, strapped to their backs, and the daggers on the belts around their waists. They had cleaned out the hive, except for a message Keel-Tath had carved into the stone, a message for the Dark Queen: Your soul shall forever rot in endless darkness.

  “Remember,” Dara-Kol, who stood on the upstream end, watching for what Keel-Tath had told her to look for, “we have only one chance at this!”

  The others nodded. While it had been Keel-Tath’s idea, she had given responsibility of the timing to Dara-Kol, who had done something similarly rash years before.

  They only had one chance, of course, because none of them knew how to swim. If they failed in what they were about to attempt, they would drown.

  “There!”

  Around the corner of the canyon swept a bloated form, a young genoth whose body was already expanding with the work of microbes, tiny things that could not be seen with the naked eye, but that the healers had always assured Keel-Tath were everywhere around them.

  Han-Ukha’i whimpered, and both Keel-Tath and Drakh-Nur held her now.

  “Ready…” Dara-Kol tensed, and Keel-Tath hoped what they were about to do would not reopen her wound, or the one in Drakh-Nur’s side. “Ready…now!”

  The ill-fated beast swept by, faster than Keel-Tath would have credited. But there was no time to think, only act.

  Together, the four of them leaped from the hive into the water beside the carcass. They tried to drive their talons into its flesh so they could hang on, but the genoth’s scales were as hard and slick as metal, and their hands slipped from the beast’s armored hide.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  New Friends

  As Keel-Tath’s hands slid down the side of the dead monster, all she could think of was that she had led herself and her companions to disaster.

  “No!” She bared her fangs in desperation and clawed with her hands against the hard scales of the genoth’s back.

  “Dig your talons under the sides of the scales!” Dara-Kol’s shout was barely audible over Han-Ukha’i’s screams.

  Keel-Tath scrabbled at the side of the beast, trying to do as Dara-Kol said, but to no avail. Dara-Kol grabbed her by the arm to keep her from slipping away in the current, just as Keel-Tath lost her grip on Han-Ukha’i.

  “Your dagger!” Dara-Kol shouted. “Use your dagger!”

  Reaching to her belt, Keel-Tath pulled out her dagger and plunged it into the genoth’s side. The armored scales deflected the tip of the blade into the joint where two scales overlapped. There, driven by the force of the blow, the weapon plunged into the skin and muscle below. “Let go of me!”

  Dara-Kol released her other arm in time for Keel-Tath to reach out and grab Han-Ukha’i’s hand as she swept past. Drakh-Nur had been holding onto her, but his own grip had slipped and he’d been forced to let the healer go lest they both fall away.

  Pulling with all her might, Keel-Tath managed to get the panicked healer close enough to the dagger that Han-Ukha’i could grab hold of it.

  After a great deal of effort that left them panting and exhausted, the four of them were finally on top of the carcass with firm holds on the three daggers that now acted as anchors to their macabre raft.

  “I would tell you truly,” Drakh-Nur gasped, “that I hate water.”

  “You have not seen anything yet, old friend,” Dara-Kol told him. “Wait until we face the Western Sea.”

  “Do not speak of it!” Han-Ukha’i was in the center, the other three around her, helping to steady her as she had no dagger of her own to hold. “But I am with Drakh-Nur. If I never see more water than what I may drink from a cup, I would be happy beyond words.”

  Dara-Kol looked at Keel-Tath and offered a tired grin. “I question your sanity, mistress, but this will keep us out of reach of our enemies, providing we are not killed by whatever perils await us downstream.”

  ***

  The current was fast, much faster than they could have walked even over level ground. Keel-Tath had no way to be sure, but she guessed they had gone at least ten leagues in the first hour. The ride was a swirling, jostling nightmare, but despite the disturbing nature of their travel, her spirits rose with the passage of time. She did not for a moment think they were going to make it all the way to the sea this way, but every league left Shil-Wular and his warriors that much farther behind. Unless they adopted a similar insane strategy, there was no way they would be able to catch up.

  What surprised her was that they seemed to be catching up to the storm. It was raining again, and soon it was pouring so hard she could barely see beyond her outstretched arm. The lightning was not as intense as it had been the night before, but still tore through the sky now and again.

  “Is being back in the storm good or bad?” She had to shout to Dara-Kol.

  “I do not know. I have never seen a storm as bad as this!”

  That was certainly not what Keel-Tath wanted to hear, and she decided not to say anything more. Instead, she turned her head and looked at Han-Ukha’i, who lay beside her, clinging to one of Keel-Tath’s arms. “How do you fare?”

  “I am cold, mistress,” Han-Ukha’i said, her voice and the song of her blood echoing intense misery, “so terribly cold.”

  “When we reach the coast,” Keel-Tath promised, “we will build a bonfire that will reach the Great Moon to warm ourselves.”

  “I would like that, mistress.” Then she closed her eyes against the rain and pressed her face against the gray scales of the genoth.

  The hours wore on as they rode westward. The worst parts of the passage were when the genoth’s body slammed against the wall where the canyon made a sharp turn. The rocky spires, too, were a menace. While many of them were snapped off or were far below the level of the water, others were like knives standing on end in the current. Drakh-Nur almost lost a leg to one when it sheared halfway through the genoth’s neck.

  The incident made Keel-Tath realize that the rocky spires that were such a feature of the landscape of the Great Wastelands must somehow grow taller, otherwise they would have long ago been worn down to nothing by the wind and rain.

  It was an idle thought that occupied a few moments of an otherwise unpleasant and frightening journey. While the ride was rough, the water was so high that they floated over what would otherwise have been rapids and even small waterfalls, any one of which could have brought their escape to a brutal end.

  The day passed into night, and still they rode downstream. The water course from the original canyon where they had begun had joi
ned with others, and by what Keel-Tath guessed must be near midnight they were riding on a much more tranquil body of water. She could see nothing at all through the dark and rain, but she no longer felt as if she was going to be thrown off at any moment by the roiling water.

  Beside her, she was sure Han-Ukha’i had fallen asleep, and she wrapped an arm over her to hold her steady. Drakh-Nur, she found, had already wrapped a tree-trunk sized arm over the slender healer, and Keel-Tath took comfort from his presence. None of them had spoken for hours. It was enough to hang on and try to breathe through the downpour.

  Sometime during the night, Keel-Tath herself must have fallen asleep, for she awoke to find the rain had stopped and the clouds, still gray, thinning above them, letting enough light through that they could see their surroundings.

  “Where are we?” She asked.

  “In the Nyan-Gol River, I think,” Dara-Kol said. She was sitting up now, and Keel-Tath joined her after making sure that Han-Ukha’i, still asleep, as was Drakh-Nur, would not roll off the dead beast.

  Keel-Tath’s stomach growled. “I am so hungry I feel I could eat half this genoth.”

  “And so our fates would be sealed, drowning after our mistress ate our raft.”

  Keel-Tath laughed. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to be alive. “How far from the coast do you think we are?”

  “I am not sure, but we cannot be far. The river here is very wide, nearly a league across, and on the shore are trees like those found along the coast. We have certainly left the Great Wastelands behind.”

  “For that, I am eternally relieved.”

  “As am I, mistress, but we are faced with another challenge.” Dara-Kol eyed the water around them. “We must get to shore, and sooner rather than later.”

  Keel-Tath could see nothing in the brown, muddy water, but a trickle of fear ran down her spine. The closer they came to the sea, the sooner they would encounter deadly fish. And they were riding on a giant corpse that was leaking the scent of blood and death into the water. “Yes,” she said uneasily. “Sooner is much preferred.” She did not want to think what would happen if they had to venture into the water with fish flocking to the dead genoth.