‘This girl is the Vessel. Perhaps—from blood all power comes—more blood.’
‘No,’ Hahn pointed at Shawn. ‘You said ‘blood of the father’, but that boy can’t be the one. Human ages baffle me, but he looks of an age with her.’
From the corner of her eye Lenina caught sight of Shawn, weak and injured on his altar. She strained to reach him but Saar’s hold was as relentless as his fury.
A little flicker of irritation bloomed in her belly. The hell it is.
The argument continued around her, Kallisto folding her arms and tilting her chin. ‘The father is dead. This human is a suitable substitute.’
‘Dead?’ Bomani’s head scarf slipped on one side revealing a flash of dark hair. Her eyes widened. ‘Then where is the body? Even dead blood will suffice.’
Shifting from foot to foot, Kallisto glared across the circle. Lenina followed her gaze to Darryl still watching from the shadows. ‘It doesn’t matter. This boy will do. The ritual demands blood. We will have more blood.’ With one of those mind bending flashes of speed, Kallisto darted back to the circle. Picked up the bowl. Another blur of motion put her level with the first altar, standing near Jordan’s head.
Lenina watched her brother blink upwards and whimper. His hands fluttered impotently against the restraining chains. His chest heaved. ‘No,’ his low voice carried, heavy with fear. The very air stank of terror. ‘Please, no, no, no!’
The circle of god-touched pressed closer, their excited energy giving the air a thick, electric buzz. The figure, draped in black, actually stepped forward, hands extended from the folds of his cloak.
‘No more mistakes.’ Kallisto gave a grim smile. Her free hand snatched the dagger from her waist, pulling it high into the air where the blade gleamed in the light of the torches. ‘I’ll cut their throats and bleed them dry.’ The weapon swung down.
Lenina screamed.
Sharp edge whistling, Saar’s ancient dagger cut through the air in a fast, deadly arc. A hair’s breadth from Jordan’s naked throat, it jerked left, hard and fast. Kallisto gave an alarmed cry as the blade wrenched her whole body round in a wild circle. Sharp and sudden, the move yanked her into the centre of the triangle, thudding against Lenina so hard they both stumbled. The girl fell, her lips parted in a graceless ‘O’ of shock.
Still she held the dagger.
‘What—’
Again, her arm twisted, leading with the dagger, this time spinning back so far that her shoulder gave with a sick, wet pop. She shrieked, flexing her fingers on the weapon, releasing it.
A cool sensation of dread flooded Lenina’s insides as the weapon hung in the air, not falling, but spinning on the axis of the guard. Then it shot into the air, streaking above the crowd and straight down, hilt first, into the raised hand of the figure in the cloak. The figure who finally shrugged away the voluminous hood and took two steps away from the circle.
‘I think this belongs to me,’ he said.
That voice . . .
Lenina bolted upright, slamming back into her body so hard her teeth rattled. She would have enjoyed it, might have rejoiced in the ability to move and feel once more, but the sensation of control quickly gave way to nausea. Dizziness.
The man in the cloak caressed the dagger, staring at the weapon like a long lost friend.
Saar’s presence in her head gave a startled cry.
The urge to faint bubbled within her. With effort she swallowed it down. Spoke. ‘Daddy?’ Lenina scrubbed her eyes with her free hand and looked again, certain this must be some trick played by her frightened, desperate mind.
But Ray didn’t speak. He didn’t move or even glance in her direction. His gaze was all for Kallisto who glared back at him with her lip curled back to expose the white glint of her teeth.
‘Who are you?’ she said.
‘Raymond Miller.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You’re dead.’
‘I’m not dead, Kallisto.’
She flinched. ‘I know your voice. Who are you, in truth?’
Ray held the bronze dagger low against his thigh as he paced across the grass. His clothes were those from earlier in the day, bloodied and shredded from Luke’s claws. No sign of the terrible wounds showed through the tears in his clothes, just clear, dark skin as unblemished as it had been the night before.
‘Look at me. Not my face, that has changed. Look at me.’ And though he still hadn’t looked her way, Lenina saw the familiar inky black colour fill her father’s eyes and blank them out.
Oh god!
Lenina turned to one side and vomited.
It couldn’t be real. No way could her father be god-touched too. Not like her. Not like Kallisto.
The darkness vanished from his eyes by the time she looked up again, bloodied ribbons of stinking drool trailing from her slack mouth. Instead he wore an expression of raw, desperate sadness, echoed by the slump of his shoulders.
Bomani moved first. Graceful as a swan, she sank to her knees and pressed her forehead to the grass. When she rose, she performed that odd salute, left hand balled into a fist with the wrist turned towards the sky. ‘Lord Saar,’ she whispered. ‘Father.’
Like the sigh of wind through the surrounding trees, the other god-touched took up the call.
Lord Saar . . . Lord Saar . . . Lord Saar . . .
Kallisto shook her head. ‘You died. I felt you die.’
Ray twirled the bronze dagger in his hands, a move so familiar, so natural that Lenina’s own hand twitched to copy. She’d performed that twirl a hundred times before. A thousand times. All over the passage of more than two thousand years.
The Saar in Lenina’s mind lashed out. He shoved through her body to flood every limb, easily now, forcefully, like he used to. He jerked forward, taking her body with him and cracked his own power like a whip.
Ray turned.
Though he made no outward movement, Lenina choked on the answering rush of power. It swirled through the air then slapped her entire body, a giant, invisible fist. The impact knocked her flat on to the bloodied stone slab.
Prickling fingers of energy tickled her skin, worming under her clothes, through her hair. They were warm and soft, tendrils of invisible silk, pulling, twisting, stroking, kneading.
With them came one last film reel of memories.
THE OLD KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS JUNE 1815
Chapter Twenty-One
A breathless soldier slithered from the saddle of his winded horse and shoved his lance point down into the soft ground. He gave a salute, sharp and stiff to match his blue and white uniform. Dark hair gathered at the nape of his neck in a long ponytail, tied off with a blue ribbon.
‘Word from the Emperor, Sir.’ His voice matched the language he spoke, soft, almost feminine, though raised to carry above the riotous pounding of prolonged battle. He glanced the way he’d come, over gently rolling hills of churned up muck littered with dead bodies. When he looked back, the hard light in his eyes was edged with fire.
‘We are to hold our position against the Allies and let them break upon us like waves on the shore. When they come, we beat them back with generous death.’
‘No,’ Saar twitched the sabre in the scabbard at his hip but chose not to draw it. Instead, he lifted his feet one at a time to free them from the sucking mud. His angry voice butchered the gentle syllables of the French tongue. ‘We attack. Is the Emperor so blind he cannot see the need? Twice we have followed his lead and twice we have found more of the Alliance hiding in the hills. But now they are weak in the centre; we must press the attack there to hold Papelotte and fully capture La Haye Sainte.’
‘Attack?’
‘Yes.’ He pounded one fist against his open palm. ‘We must do what we failed earlier and attack while we have the opportunity. Blucher sends reinforcements from the east but if we take La Haye Sainte, Wellington’s forces here will break. Then
we may deal with the Prussians.’
The soldier shrugged. ‘These are the orders I received not two minutes ago. We must wait.’
‘We must?’ A creeping warmth crawled up the back of Saar’s neck. It spread beneath the collar of his jacket and the shirt beneath, both splattered with mud and blood. ‘I made him what he is; First Consul would be but a dream if not for my influence. He dares tell me “we must”?’ Snarling, he grabbed the man about the throat and shoved him back. ‘Give the Emperor this response; my men will move when I say the word and when they do, they will move where I say. That fool Ney forced us to wait while mud and bog cleared, though he knew Blucher marched ever closer. No, I’ll not wait for the likes of them.’
Kicking at the air, the soldier clutched at Saar’s wrist to support his weight. ‘I can’t . . .’
Saar tightened his fingers. He spent a moment enjoying the darkening colour in those mud smeared cheeks before dropping him.
I should never have let Cerdic be the one to Kiss Bonaparte. His mind should be mine to mould.
The terrified messenger scrambled away without his horse, dragging his lance through the dirt.
Saar let him go and turned to study his own men.
Peasants. Disgruntled farmers. A few veterans who might know how to hold a musket or fire a cannon. The rest were hastily gathered and more quickly trained. The holes in their knowledge could sink a ship. Perhaps they had.
For a man who had already conquered significant parts of Europe in so few years, Napoleon’s resources were sorely lacking. Numbers did not always equate victory; Saar knew that well, and these men, in varied states of disarray, looked ready to break at any moment.
I need more time, he mused. A few god-touched soldiers would turn this battle.
In his mind’s eye, Saar saw his men sweep over Wellington’s forces like a wash of foamy surf. No matter how many Englishmen hid in the folds of the land, he would scatter them like so much driftwood.
The blood of many men stained his fingers and palms. His own blood caked the shoulder of his over jacket around a jagged tear where a bayonet blade had punched through. The human man’s dying screams still echoed in Saar’s ears, the rougher, coarser tongue of the English so different to that of his chosen companions. The acrid stench of gun powder stung his nostrils, poor cover for the musk of horses and sickly-sweet sweat.
The men under his command watched him move, their fear spicing the air. Pink faces shone with rain and perspiration, nervous fingers fumbling the butts of their muskets. Some gazed at the floor, pondering the churned, brown mud as though it held all the answers.
‘Papelotte is ours for the moment,’ he said. ‘Now we press our advantage. Prepare to march on the centre of the enemy line.’
With much shuffling, cursing and awkward bumping, the men obeyed.
Saar comforted himself with thoughts of his plans once the battle was won. How he would use Monsieur Bonaparte’s power, money and influence to rebuild his own army. More than enough with which to reclaim Egypt.
Yet victory seemed less likely with every passing moment.
Grunting, Saar kicked at a clod of mud and watched it sail across the green-brown field. It landed on a body lying face-down in a sea of pulverised earth. Black mud caked the clothing to the point that it was no longer clear if he had been friend or foe.
‘Lines,’ he snapped. The bite in his voice caused several of the stragglers to yelp and run to find their place, struggling to keep their muskets and the long bayonets at their tips from tangling. ‘Present arms.’
The first line of men lowered their weapons to point their blades towards the enemy. Sharp tips formed a raggle-taggle line. Behind them, the next row performed a similar motion and those in front cried out as sharp tips pricked their backs and shoulders.
Saar sighed.
I should leave . . . put this powdered, pampered country at my rear. Given his lust for conquest Bonaparte won’t miss my presence.
But he couldn’t. Not while the real threat remained.
As if the thought were a summons, a sweet spike of pleasure raced through his mind, momentarily blinding him.
Yameen.
Saar reached down the line between them, feeling out his childe’s location. East, no doubt in direct combat with Blucher’s advancing forces. He allowed himself to relax, knowing that between them, Yameen, Cerdic and Hahn would take care of matters beyond his immediate control.
A second link opened and blossomed like a rose.
Saar stumbled at the force of it, the familiarity of it. Even after hundreds of years without it, this link he knew, recognised and treasured.
He spun around, angling towards the feeling that joined it; an insectile prickle down his back and arms.
Fizzing bursts of energy shot through his limbs, forcing his fingers open, then closed, and open again. He gasped. Directed his gaze to a low rise in the land half a mile away upon which stood a single figure in military red.
Despite the distance Saar knew him instantly, from the soft smile, to the dark hair curling about his neck beneath the stiff, red cap.
Mosi . . .
Other men clustered about him, each wearing the colours of the enemy. To the left, the tall, slender figure of Wellington himself briefly touched Mosi on the shoulder and pointed south towards Saar’s men.
Pain speared his chest, the betrayal made visible before him, a visual echo of the battle outside Alexandria.
He gritted his teeth. Snatched a gun from a startled soldier on his left and pointed to the centre of the Allied line. ‘Advance.’
A cannon fired, the blast shaking the air. Clods of dirt geysered upwards chased by clouds of choking grey smoke. The scent of gunpowder intensified. Screams, then thuds as the twelve pound cannonball hit a cluster of men.
Breaking bones. Guns firing. Shrieks of pain. The dull thud-thud as the ball hit the ground. Unlike previous days when the deadly projectiles bounced six or seven times, this one stopped after two and stuck fast in the mud.
The men still standing looked his way, features slack with fear.
‘I said, adva—’ the words died on his lips as white-hot pain slashed across his throat. He gasped, choking on blood, he could neither see nor taste. It slipped down his throat, gagging him, clogging his throat, filling his lungs. With a shriek he clawed himself free of the sensations and focused on who they belonged to.
Not Yameen . . . not Cerdic . . . not Hahn.
Ice flooded his veins. His gaze snapped towards the hill top.
‘Mosi!’ He ran up the hill, hardly caring that his men had fallen in behind, an uneven line of lowered muskets and bayonet points. He outran them in seconds, leaving them far behind as superior speed guided him on.
A figure in red and white loomed before him, wielding his rifle like a club. He shrieked as he saw Saar and dropped to one knee, spinning his weapon round to fire. Saar rushed forward, shoving his hand beneath the long muzzle and thrusting up. The gun spun into the air and landed in the mud fifteen feet away.
While the man spluttered and cursed, Saar drove the blade of his palm into the base of the soldier’s throat, crushing the narrow windpipe within. As the man toppled sideways and died, Saar stepped over him and kept moving.
The air burned, filled with flecks of grit and the industrial stink of metal and oil. It seared through the growing clouds of stinking smoke, a near impenetrable haze that singed the eyes. A horse cried out, that shrill, panicked sound so close to the shrieks of a dying human. Perhaps it was human. Saar couldn’t tell. Didn’t care.
‘Mosi!’ He tried to follow the bond, but his own panic mingled with his childe’s pain to make the trail waver and splinter. ‘Mosi, please, answer me.’
A low gurgle came from the ground on his right.
Saar wheeled towards it, hurling himself into the mud beside a figure in grime-smeared red and white.
Blood pumped from the wide smile in Mosi’s throat, spilling over his chest and shoulders. The flow slowe
d but not fast enough and the grim resignation in the smaller man’s eyes said he knew it too. His lips moved but all that emerged was a bright glob of crimson that quickly blended into his jacket.
‘Mosi . . . Gods, Mosi, you can heal this. This is but a scratch to the likes of you or I.’
He shook his head. Again he tried to speak and this time a scratchy whine came through. ‘. . . is time . . . must die . . . stop the evil . . .’
‘Who did this? I will kill the man who dared to attack you.’
‘. . . not human . . .’
Saar clenched his fists. ‘I will bring someone. You will give your tribute and be well.’ He took a step, but paused when Mosi’s hand closed over his ankle with surprising strength.
‘No, Saar.’ Mosi’s eyes flared white through the smoke for brief seconds before settling back to brown. He released Saar’s ankle and stood, one hand gently cupping the horrific wound in his throat. ‘No more evil . . . I told you.’
Saar gnawed his thumbnail, caught in that uncomfortable limbo between rage and fear. ‘This is madness! Let me heal you, Mosi—I don’t want you dead. I never did. Still I love you.’
‘And I love . . .’
The thunderous boom of another cannon shot drowned the rest of his words.
Spinning, Saar tried to pin point the sound.
Smoke muffled everything. Threw echoes in all directions.
The air whistled on his right.
He ducked. Struck mud. Rolled.
Something large and heavy thudded into the earth beside him. A smaller something followed.
A smoking cannonball rolled an inch through the muck near his foot, then stopped.
Saar shook. His throat closed up. A great fist seemed to close about his lungs and squeeze. Darkness welled up inside him, rushing up from the pit of his heart where he felt a familiar tearing sensation he’d hoped never to feel again.
‘No! No, Gods, please! No!’
Mosi’s headless body tumbled to the ground. Flesh crumbled into sand, first fingers, then hands. Years of decay spread across his body and forced golden grains through the openings of his clothing.
Walking The Razor's Edge Page 17