The Quintessence Cycle- The Complete Series

by Terry C. Simpson

  “You defeated the enemy,” Guai said, flicking wet hair from his eyes.

  “B-but all the dead … our people … your people.”

  “Death’s strange like that. You think you know him, but then he reveals a part of himself you’ve not seen. He reminds you that he’s cruel and cold and cares not for a soul.”

  How was the Blade Captain so calm? Keedar wanted to scream, but a part of him held fast.

  Slaves were streaming from the mines. Most were men; cyclers used for the brunt of the hard work. While some stopped and stared, others rushed to the wounded and the dead.

  “What have I done,” Keedar whispered again, unable to avert his gaze from the butchery. He tried to think of anything he could have done differently. Perhaps manifested a wall of earth to block the bits of sulfur and kerin. He shook his head. The kerin would have cut through the meld. Many would still be dead. Many, but not this many.

  “Take this as a lesson,” Guai said, following Keedar’s gaze. “Sometimes, actions committed with the best intentions have the worst possible outcome. Wallow later. Right now, these people need our help, and we still have the Bloody Corridor and their main operation left. We were almost beaten here, and if what Thar says is true, then we haven’t faced the enemy’s best yet.” Guai headed uphill, striding through the carnage as if it were his home.

  Keedar trudged through the rain after the man, trying not to see the suffering all around him, trying not to hear the moans, cries, and prayers. Steeling himself, he set his mind on any help he could offer the survivors.

  He was picking his way among the bodies when Lenyin came stumbling from the main cavern, his yellow complexion pale as mother’s milk. The Blade stopped and began to retch. Several other Blades were outside, some spilling the contents of their stomachs, while others were muttering prayers to Hazline and the Thirty-two Winds of Fate, staring off into the heavens.

  Guai strode over to them. He grabbed Lenyin by the shoulders and spun him around. “What is it?”

  Lenyin wiped his mouth with his sleeve and raised a shaky hand to point at the mine entrance. “In … in there … you, you have to see for yourself.”

  A grimace marring his features, the Blade Captain stared into the dimly lit interior. He hesitated for a moment, let out a breath, and entered.

  Keedar hurried over to Lenyin. He made to question the Marishman when the reek hit him.

  Death. Rot.

  He snapped his mouth shut. Drawn to the stench’s origin like a crow to carrion, he entered the cavern. It angled down, lamps along the walls offering but so much luminance. He followed the passage, legs wooden, footsteps echoing in the gloom.

  The odor grew so foul he was forced to cover his nose and mouth. Up ahead, Guai stood frozen at the entrance to another passage. Keedar reached him and peered inside.

  Corpses littered an enormous cavern. Dozens upon dozens of them. Hundreds. Men. Women. Children. All were Marish. Many were shriveled as if something had sucked the life from them. Some hung suspended from chains, bodies glistening wet.

  Keedar fought down the urge to puke. Then he saw the reason for the wetness.

  Someone had skinned them all.

  G old S cale

  W inslow Giorin’s feet dangled from the edge of the straw rooftop above the dueling ring. Dracodarkind gathered below him, sunlight glinting off gold, silver, and bronze scales. Expectant murmurs drifted from them like the wind rustling through the treetops of the forest across the lake. Their musky scent permeated the humid air.

  “I’d hoped Yan-Harin would be here to see my progress.” He scanned the crowd again, but his instructor was conspicuously absent. Even among them, there was no missing the silver-scaled warrior. “Why isn’t he here?”

  Kel-Nasim let out a heavy sigh and gave a slight shake of his bronze-scaled head. “He went after Na-Rashim.”

  Frowning, Winslow turned to regard his friend. “The Aladar who oversees the Fast of Madness? Why? Where would—?” The sadness etched on Kel-Nasim’s face gave Winslow pause and spoke of one thing alone. After glancing to either side to make certain no one was within earshot, Winslow lowered his voice. “The Longing?” He hoped he was wrong.

  “Yes. Na-Rashim is his son.” Kel-Nasim’s broad shoulders slumped.

  A weight descended on Winslow, but he slapped Kel-Nasim on the back, intending to inject a measure of confidence into one of his few friends among the Dracodar. “This time will be different. Yan-Harin is leading the search.” In his head, he said a brief prayer to the Dominion and to the Dracodar’s Old Gods, the Eternals.

  “Let us hope so.” Kel-Nasim gazed out across the lake and the deeper darkness of the Upper Treskelin Forest. “Let us hope so.”

  “Positive thoughts. Think good things, and good things will happen. If you’re this glum now, how will you cheer for me when I succeed in my duel?”

  Kel-Nasim smiled, but it seemed a forced one. “I will cheer even if I doubt your success.”

  “I defeated every other apprentice in single combat.” Winslow slicked back his dark, shoulder-length hair before looping a cord around it to form a ponytail. “I’ll be fine. All I need to do is land one hit on Tak-Larim to pass the trial. How hard can it be?”

  “I could lie to you, but it would be pointless.” Kel-Nasim shrugged. “Hitting Tak-Larim will be like trying to catch the wind. He is not some apprentice or half-breed. He is a master, one of the First-Born. The difference between the two is as a pond to the ocean, as is the difference between you and him.” For days, he’d tried to convince Winslow to change his mind.

  Winslow refused to relent. Achieving this much would take him closer to accomplishing the goal Thar set forth, and would make him feel more at home among them. Fighting was the one thing at which he excelled. He much preferred it to the boring lectures he dealt with several times a week from a Kheridisian instructor sent from one of the nearby cities. What point was there in learning of the Kheridisian government and its peoples anyway? This land mattered little in the Empire’s grand scheme. To make those teachings worse, he was the only one in the class. But his uncle had insisted, and so he had no choice but to learn.

  “I have to try,” Winslow said.

  “No, you do not. They would think more of you if you were to wear your scales, complete the hunt, and participate in the Spirit Race to earn your place.”

  “But even if I should lose the Trial of Combat, what does it cost me? A little frustration? A bit of pain?” Winslow recalled the two apprentices who’d made it this far. Their defeats by the other instructors had amounted to little more than lessons. “If I’m beaten here I still have a chance to complete the hunt and take part in the race.” He was still uncertain as to what the two entailed; no one would speak to him about them in detail, not even his friend. But if a few apprentices were willing to fight rather than do either, then it stood to reason he might be better off bypassing them. “It’s not as if a loss means I’m out. I’m surprised more of you don’t take the Trial. Look, a little luck, land a blow, and I achieve something the others couldn’t. That has to mean something.”

  “It would, if you were seen as one of us. Who knows how they will react should you somehow touch Tak-Larim while unable to call forth your scales.”

  The words hurt. They were a reminder of his inadequacies. Of the way the Dracodar saw him. “I guess we’ll find out together. I doubt it could make me more of an outcast than I already am.”

  Winslow eyed the gold-scaled Dracodar below, most at least seven feet in height and well-muscled. They were the Ganhi , the most revered of Dracodarkind, wielders of the quintessence cycle. He was supposed to be one of them, had thought of himself as such, until he’d come to the training camp.

  Thinking of the scales brought forth memories of the excruciating pain he suffered on the second occasion he summoned his forth. It was as if he’d been ripped from inside out. He shuddered. The pain was a stark contrast to the first time he exposed his scales at the end of the Fast
of Madness. He’d felt nothing then and had become certain it was due to the damage already done to his body during the test. If only he could reproduce such a state in his mind. He sighed and focused on the task at hand.

  The area around the dueling ring was packed to overflowing with children and adults. Silver Dracodar—the Sarhi —mingled with gold. Aladar, the Bashi , stood out among them, scales a vibrant bronze. Each Dracodarkind wore a loincloth, longer on females than males. Those too small or young to attain a good spot from which to watch had chosen the surrounding rooftops to take in the fight.

  Beyond the training ground’s huts and animal pens the Upper Treskelin Forest rose in sentinel green, a dark stain along the distant lakeshore. A breath of cool wind swept from the body of water, carrying a whiff of thick moss and the joyous lilt of birdsong. Leaves swirled into the air. Winslow held his face up to the breeze, glad for the brief respite from Mandrigal’s forge as the golden celestial blazed a trail across a cloudless sky.

  The crowd’s murmur grew. A ripple passed through them. Winslow followed the movement.

  Tak-Larim sauntered through the crowd, head held high. The Dracodar was taller than most by a good foot, silver scales prismatic when sunlight struck them. A nod here or there was all he offered to those who bowed to him. Pride and arrogance rolled from the Sarhi leader. He moved with a grace that dripped danger. As if he sensed Winslow, Tak-Larim glanced toward the rooftop. A smile graced his lips then; his fangs showed. The expression didn’t meet his amber eyes whose large, black, convex pupils narrowed for an instant. Winslow shivered and averted his gaze.

  “If the chance is offered, you should admit defeat,” Kel-Nasim said.

  “That would be quitting. I never quit.” Winslow braced himself against the edge of the roof and pushed off.

  ******

  Winslow circled his opponent, breathing ragged. Flies buzzed around him, but he ignored them, focusing instead on the rise and fall of Tak-Larim’s silver-scaled chest, waiting for any hint of the Dracodar’s intentions. Nervousness eased through his gut. Flutters that mimicked fear.

  A sea of faces surrounded him, sunlight glinting off their scales. The proximity of the gathered Aladar and Dracodar made the dueling ring feel smaller than it was. Even more disconcerting was their silence, deep as the foreboding Upper Treskelin behind them.

  In the previous contests the tribe members had cheered and cajoled, encouraged a good strike, rebuked a missed opportunity. Or had groaned when their favorite lost. Now, they watched with inhuman eyes, dark-colored convex pupils so much like those of a snake. They offered no murmurs or whispers. No encouragement. No indrawn breaths. Not even a hiss. No protests at the beating he’d suffered from Tak-Larim so far.

  He grimaced at another stab of pain from one of the numerous welts and bruises scouring his body. Sweat trickled down his forehead, stung when its saltiness touched his injuries, and made a matted mess of hair whose dark strands stuck to his bare shoulders and back. The buzzing flies were loud to his ears. He licked his lips and swallowed, trying to calm his nerves, his breathing, to clear his thoughts enough to devise a successful attack.

  His daggers were slick, whereas before they’d felt like extensions of his arms. Squeezing the leather-wrapped handles tight, he stopped and stalked in the opposite direction.

  Ten to twelve feet of sandy ground separated him from Tak-Larim. An ocean of space. Such was the gulf in their skills. Such was the difference in size and reach. Not once had his attacks come within more than a few inches of Tak-Larim’s sinuous body.

  Tak-Larim’s slit of a mouth curved up, lips so thin as to be nonexistent. The corners of his amber eyes crinkled with a smile that set Winslow’s heart to a gallop again. Black pupils darted back and forth, tracking Winslow wherever he went without the need for the towering Dracodar to shift his head. The only other movement came from the flexing of Tak-Larim’s claw-tipped fingers.

  “You soft-skins are all the same,” Tak-Larim hissed. Winslow paused behind his slender back. “Weak. Slow. Scaleless. Tainted. A waste of breeding.” The loathing in his voice was palpable. “Such a pitiful excuse for the son of a broodmother, for a supposed son of the queen. And to think Thar dared to claim you were Ganhi .”

  Ignoring the taunt, Winslow drew on his soul, magnifying his legs with the cycles, tern and shi . With his body feeling lighter than a feather on the breeze, he darted in, covering the space between them in an eye-blink.

  Only to slice empty air.

  “As I said … slow,” whispered Tak-Larim, somehow behind Winslow now. His breath was hot against Winslow’s ear and stank of old food.

  Winslow whipped his elbow up and backward. But Tak-Larim was already gone. The momentum of the missed blow twisted Winslow around.

  They practically came face-to-face, Tak-Larim leaning down, long neck bent at an inhuman angle to bring his scaled features within a few inches of Winslow’s forehead. “Slow, soft-skin. So slow.” Pity radiated from eyes that seemed to drink in the world.

  Winslow was already reversing his strike, bringing his daggers up. This time he had the Dracodar. He smiled in triumph.

  An open-handed slap sent Winslow spinning. He tumbled to the ground, rolled, and came to rest at the clawed feet of some spectators. His vision blurred for a few moments; his ears rang; his face throbbed. The earthy taste of blood filled his mouth. Fear set his heart racing, and he fought to control it, fought against the urge to cower, to run. Shaking his head, he pushed to his feet, and brought his weapons up into a defensive position, pain radiating from his body with each indrawn breath.

  He frowned at an eruption of sound. The crowd was cheering: a chorus of roars in favor of the silver scales’ leader. Tak-Larim motioned with his arm. The spectators dwindled to a murmur, but expectation hung thick in the air, a cloak as heavy as the day’s swelter.

  “You might best an apprentice in this style of combat.” Tak-Larim strode across the dueling ring with an exaggerated sway, overlong arms dangling to either side of his loincloth. “But against a true warrior, you are little more than a nuisance, even when you draw on soul.” The Dracodar stopped in front of Winslow, head cocked to one side. The urge to shy away was near overwhelming. “We.” He cast a hand out to those around him without taking his eyes from Winslow. “Were bred for war. We are war. It will end now. Do you yield or do we continue?”

  The triumphant gleam in Tak-Larim’s eyes and the smile on his lips made Winslow’s blood boil. He refused to allow the tribe leader to get the better of him. He spoke before he contemplated the decision. “Contin—”

  “Enough!” rumbled a thunderous voice.

  A hush fell across the gathered masses. The crowd parted, a body carving a path through them like a boat’s prow through waves.

  Built like a nine foot barrel, Yan-Harin strode into the ring. Even among the Dracodar he was a giant. Any man would be a fool to think Yan-Harin’s girth was simply fat. Muscle rippled beneath silver scales tinged with the iridescence of age. The Dracodar instructor glanced at Winslow and grimaced, puckering the scar that marred his face from left eye to cheek. The corner of his lips rising to show his fangs, Yan-Harin directed his attention to Tak-Larim, and gestured with a meaty hand. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “The soft-skin asked to be a part of the Trial of Combat. He wanted a chance to show his worth, to prove he is one of us and not a filthy human, a chance to follow in the footsteps of the best apprentices. Like them, he thought himself already a warrior, earning the right of exclusion from the Spirit Race.”

  “The Spirit Race?” Yan-Harin’s hairless brow rose in a lumpy frown. “I thought the First-Born decided to forego that tradition for this war.”

  “Your thoughts deceived you. The race is as much a part of war preparation as we are wedded to battle. How else are we to determine the worthy?”

  Yan-Harin made to answer but stopped with his lips parted. His eyes narrowed. A smile graced Tak-Larim’s face.

  “I shall speak t
o the First-Born,” Yan-Harin said with a scowl.

  “Be my guest.” Tak-Larim bowed mockingly. “Before you go, tell us, did you return with your son?”

  Yan-Harin’s teeth showed for an instant before he shook his head. A pained expression crossed his face. With a final glance in Winslow’s direction, the Dracodar instructor turned and trudged away, the crowd parting before him and closing behind him until only his head and shoulders were visible. He disappeared in the direction of the meeting huts.

  A melancholy pang eased through Winslow. Na-Rashim had been there to protect him during the Fast of Madness. Without the Aladar, he might be dead, or worse, lost to the forest. He muttered a prayer for Yan-Harin’s son.

  The Dracodarians dispersed, murmuring amongst themselves. The word soft-skin drifted to Winslow, uttered with scorn or a chortle that reeked of absurdity. He heaved a sigh.

  “It would have been better if he had not interfered.” Tak-Larim was still peering in the direction Yan-Harin had gone. “Better if you had not come here. You think being a child of Elin-Lahnim would help you, but almost every one of us is of her line. Even if she might favor you, she is not here. She is caught up in her ploys, kneeling before men we should rule, laying with them.” His features twisted into a mask of disgust. “No matter what you do, you will never be Ganhi . Even if you should one day touch the quintessence .” He stalked toward the huts.

  Winslow sighed. The name had chased him ever since Uncle Thar had brought him among the tribes and declared him to be one of the gold scales. Its connotations were a burden. His failures in training, at achieving the last few cycles, and his human skin, belied Thar’s pronouncement. Tak-Larim used every chance to point out those deficiencies. Winslow’s lone achievement was the speed in which he’d learned the Dracodar tongue. A short-lived triumph. Annoyed, he batted at one of the many flies buzzing around him. It flitted away. He sighed.

  “This is for you,” a musical voice said from behind him.