Heirs of Destiny Box Set

by Andy Peloquin

  Not if I have anything to say about that!

  The sight of her terror drove away the last of Kodyn’s fear. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t let the panic slow him down. If he did, she died.

  They had killed five, but still more Gatherers charged. Not only at him, but a handful surged toward Rothin, who stood alone, sword bared and fear sparkling in his eyes. Kodyn stood less than thirty paces from the front door, but with close to thirty Gatherers barring his path, he might as well have been a thousand leagues away. He’d never make it to the house in time.

  Rage scorched his chest as the image played out in front of his eyes. The Gatherers would overwhelm Rothin by sheer force of numbers, and they’d spill into the house. Without Aisha to protect Briana, the girl would be killed—after the Gatherers murdered Nessa and the servants. Unless by some miracle Hailen had uncovered the secrets of the Serenii artifacts, his blood would soon flow as the cultists swept through their house in a tide of death.

  He leapt over the still-burning corpse and charged the nearest cluster of cultists. A desperate last stand, but he had no other choice.

  His sword drew sparks off the Gatherer’s blade and he drove his dagger into the man’s chest. Suddenly, he was confronted by four more, both wielding short swords. Grim resolution hardened within him as he prepared to fight to his last breath.

  As long as Briana’s safe, I’ll—

  “Charge!”

  A roaring shout cut off his thoughts. For a moment, Kodyn thought he’d imagined or misheard it. It couldn’t possibly have come from nearby—Hykos fought beside him, his two-handed flammard scything through Gatherers with impossible force.

  Yet, impossibly, black-armored figures spilled from the shadows of the alley east of the Gatherers and barreled into the cultists from the opposite flank. Hope surged within Kodyn as he caught sight of a familiar face in the lead.

  “Issa!”

  With a fierce grin, the Blade waded into the fray, her huge sword swinging with a ferocity to match Hykos’ blade. Gatherers fell beneath her onslaught. Kodyn’s eyes flew wide as he spotted a second Blade fighting beside her! On their heels came a ten-man patrol of Indomitables, all as young as Issa, but no less resolute. Their sickle-shaped khopesh swords cut through the Gatherers as if harvesting wheat.

  Kodyn loosed a throaty cry and threw himself onto the nearest Gatherer, driving his dagger home into the man’s neck. The cultist dragged him down as he fell, entangling him in his strong arms. Panic gripped Kodyn’s heart in an iron fist as he struggled in vain to break free of the dying man’s grasp. Sandaled feet slapped against the ground, drawing closer. Kodyn lifted his eyes to find a Gatherer standing over him, sword raised to strike.

  Kodyn tried to wrest his sword free, but it was caught between him and the dying man, his dagger still embedded in the man’s throat. He couldn’t hope to break free or defend himself in time. He did the only thing he could: he threw himself to one side, seizing the body beneath him as he rolled. The meat shield stopped the killing blow inches from Kodyn’s head. The Gatherer’s strike carved through flesh but caught in the dead man’s skull and spine.

  In the instant the Gatherer struggled to free his blade, Kodyn released his grip on his long sword. His fingers closed around the hilt of the dagger still embedded in the Gatherer’s throat and he tore it free with a vicious yank. He lashed out, a wild blow aimed at his enemy’s leg. The Gatherer screamed as Kodyn’s blade severed the muscles in the back of his calf. Another slash sliced the tendon along the back of the man’s leg, just above his ankle. As the man stumbled to one knee, Kodyn slashed at his inner thigh in a desperate attempt to open the huge artery.

  Pain exploded in the side of his head as a Gatherer’s boot connected with his skull. Sparks spun in his vision and the world spun wildly around him. Instinct screamed at him to move, and he somehow managed to retain his senses long enough to tuck his arm close against his body. Steel sparked off stone where his hand had been an instant earlier.

  He shook his head to try to clear it, but the starts refused to leave his vision. He’d gotten lucky once but—

  Warm wetness splashed over his face, accompanied by a dull thump on the street beside him. He blinked in stunned surprise at the headless body lying in an ever-widening pool of blood.

  “Come on!” Hykos stood over him, sword held in a firm one-handed grip, the other hand outstretched toward him. “On your feet!”

  Kodyn clasped the Blade’s hand, and Hykos hauled him out from beneath the dead Gatherer. He hadn’t even risen to his feet before he tore a throwing dagger from a hidden sheath and hurled it left-handed. The blade buried to the hilt in the chest of the cultist racing up behind Hykos, dropping the man in his tracks.

  “Let’s go!” Hykos shouted. “We need to get to Rothin!”

  Kodyn seized the momentary lull in enemies to shoot a glance toward the house. Rothin had retreated inside but held the doorway, his sword flashing right and left, high and low, as he fought to keep the Gatherers out. Issa and her company were beating down nearly half of the Gatherers clustered on the eastern edge of the fray, but there were still close to ten cultists trying to cut their way through Rothin.

  Kodyn left his long sword beneath the cultist’s body and instead snatched up a pair of short swords from a fallen Gatherer. It would cost him precious seconds to retrieve his own blade and, at that moment, every second counted.

  With a yell, he charged the next Gatherer. The cultist parried his blows with surprising skill, but a fire of fury burned within Kodyn’s chest. He battered at the man’s one short sword with his two, until his enemy’s defense crumbled beneath the assault. A powerful chop buried his right-handed short sword in the cultist’s forearm a heartbeat before his left-handed sword drove into the man’s throat. He ripped the blades free and gave the body a savage kick, sending it toppling backward.

  And then he was through the Gatherers facing him. He had a moment to breathe, to glance at the combat around him to see where he was needed most. Hykos fought three Gatherers, who attacked with quick thrusts and strikes, hounds nipping at a bear. But this bear had a massive two-handed sword that sheared through flesh and bone like a hurricane through a field of orchids.

  Issa and her patrol seemed to have the other Gatherers on the run. Indeed, one of the cultists actually turned and fled, only to be cut down by the second Blade fighting beside Issa—another young woman.

  Without hesitation, he charged at the backs of the Gatherers trying to cut their way into the house. He brought one down with a vicious chop to the neck, where skull met spine. The man sagged forward, collapsing into the man in front of him, who bore down the two beside him as he flailed for balance. It was like a house of playing cards collapsing beneath a strong wind. Only the foremost Gatherer, the one directly in front of the door, managed to stay on his feet.

  Kodyn leapt over the prone Gatherers and drove his left-handed short sword into the man’s lower back. Steel sliced through bone, cartilage, and nerves. The man flopped forward onto his face, his legs slack and useless.

  “Rothin!” he shouted as he rushed the door.

  The guard’s powerful swing nearly took off his head. He barely blocked it, though the force of the blow jarred him to the shoulder.

  “It’s me!” he shouted.

  Rothin paused, sword raised high, face twisted in a battle grimace. His eyes flew wide and he seemed to recognize Kodyn.

  “K-Kodyn?”

  “Yes!” Kodyn shouted. “Looks like we’re here in just in time.” He whirled to face the door, swords held at the ready. “Watch my back, and we’ll keep the bastards from getting in!”

  “Damn straight!” Rothin growled behind him.

  Kodyn’s gut clenched as the six surviving Gatherers disentangled themselves from their awkward pile and clambered to their feet. Eyes blazing, short swords glinting in the moonlight, they resumed their attack on the door.

  Yet Kodyn stood firm. “Come on, you bastards!” he roared. His swor
d swung with precision, his blows backed with the power of his anger. He’d be damned if he let the cultists take Briana again.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Aisha’s mouth went dry, her heart thundering in her chest as she studied the Gatherers. Scores—easily more than a hundred that she could see—stood, sat, or huddled around coal-burning braziers. A steady chill permeated this deep inside the mountain, cold enough that the Gatherers needed cloaks and shawls to keep off the cold. They spoke in quiet voices, for all purposes as human as anyone else she’d met: eating, drinking, sleeping, and passing the time.

  Yet she had seen the maniacal light in their eyes, determination etched into their faces as they tried to kill her and Briana. They might be ordinary-looking men and women, but their worship of the Long Keeper turned them into bloodthirsty demons.

  The blue-white figures of the Kish’aa clustered around the dead. Aisha felt the sparks of life within her flare bright and hot. Eldesse and Osirath, even Thimara, burned with a fury.

  Vengeance! Eldesse and Osirath shouted in unison in her mind.

  The empty eyes of the spirits turned toward Aisha, and she heard their voices whisper in her mind. They, too, demanded vengeance. Men, women, even children that had died too soon—felled by disease, murder, or starvation—begged her for justice, to avenge them. She had no doubt that they blamed the Gatherers, even the ones that bore the blue, pus-oozing blisters of the Azure Rot.

  Her gaze returned to the Gatherers, then traveled upward, roaming over the enormous statue that towered over their heads. The effigy bore the features of a stern-faced man, and an artisan had etched the painstaking details of a simple headband, a suit of armor, and a sharpened pickaxe into the golden sandstone.

  Sixty feet tall with a base nearly ten paces across, the statue shielded the light of the Gatherers’ fires from view. Anyone approaching from the south, east, or north could easily mistake the faint glimmers for one of the many lanterns and torches set at intervals along the pathways that intersecting the Crypt.

  Aisha’s mind raced. No wonder no one has been able to find them! They’ve been hiding in the last place anyone would look for them.

  According to Briana, the superstitious Shalandrans rarely braved the Crypts, save for the final entombment of their dead. The Indomitable patrols mostly kept to the broad avenue that ran north to south, up to the Keeper’s Tier and down to the Slave’s Tier, just inside the tombs. No one truly knew how deep the passages ran—every year, new additions were made as more dead were laid to rest.

  Shalandrans feared the living dead, the fabled Stumblers animated by dark, ancient magics. Aisha put little stock in such myths—Ghandian folklore had their own equally fabricated version. Yet that might explain why no one had encountered the Gatherers.

  Only Intaji stonemasons ventured into the mountain depths on a regular basis. They were hired by bereaved relatives in need of a fresh crypt, sarcophagus, or tombstone. Judging by the looks of the tombs around her, no new burial places had been added for years.

  Aisha shook her head in disbelief. Given who the Gatherers are and what they believe, this is exactly where we should have thought.

  A war raged in Aisha’s mind as she decided what to do next. She could feel the spirits of Eldesse and Osirath pulling her toward the Gatherers. Briana’s loyal servants had found the ones that murdered them and wanted vengeance. Energy crackled up and down her arms, the sparks of their lives dancing eagerly as if begging to be unleashed. Aisha had to fight to remain immobile when the dead wanted her to charge.

  There are too many of them! I can’t take on more than a hundred.

  She spoke in her mind, silent yet insistent, trying once more to communicate with the spirits. The Whispering Lily didn’t just enable her to hear the Kish’aa; somehow, it parted the veil to Pharadesi so they could hear her, too.

  If I am dead, who will avenge you?

  That seemed to work. The urgency humming within her faded and the tug on her limbs diminished. She breathed easy, pressing herself deeper into the shadows.

  I can’t deal with them, but maybe I don’t have to.

  Hykos and Issa were Keeper’s Blades, trusted by Lady Callista Vinaus herself. If they brought word of the Gatherer’s location, they could muster a swarm of Indomitables and Keeper’s Blades to descend upon the Crypts. The Gatherers would be eliminated once and for all and Briana would no longer have to worry about her safety. She could focus on uncovering the secrets in her father’s journal—and helping Aisha find a way to control her powers and diminish the negative effects of the Whispering Lily. Kodyn would be free to work with Evren to get into the Vault of Ancients and steal the relics. The threat against their lives could end here, tonight.

  Aisha was about to turn and slip back the way she’d come when she caught sight of movement within the Crypts, just north of her position. She froze, eyes locked onto the shadows.

  A moment later, a dark figure emerged from between a pair of tall headstones. He was a shabby-looking man, shifty-eyed, with the slim build and nervous wariness of a thief. An Ybrazhe thief.

  The nearest Gatherers reacted with alacrity, leaping to their feet and reaching for weapons.

  “It’s me!” came the cry, and the man held up empty hands. “I’ve a message from Annat.”

  Ice ran down Aisha’s spine. Message?

  The Gatherers, seeming to recognize the man, relaxed their posture and released their grip on their blades. With visible relief, the little thief hurried forward and delivered his message in a low voice.

  Aisha was too far away to overhear his words, but she feared she could guess its contents. Their suspicion that the Ybrazhe was working with the Gatherers had proven true. Evren had spotted someone watching the house. If it had been the Syndicate, the thief was now telling the Gatherers where to find Briana.

  But why? Chaos whirled in her mind. Why would they want Briana now that her father’s dead? It didn’t make sense, but right now, she couldn’t worry about that. She had to get back to the house and warn the others.

  Silent as a leopard stalking its prey, she spun away from the Gatherers and turned east, intending to cut back through the tombs until she reached the road that led her up to the Artisan’s Tier.

  Yet she hadn’t taken two steps when she was confronted by a solid wall of blue-white light. Hundreds of spirits—men, women, children, old and young—clustered in front of her. She stopped in her tracks, unwilling to pass through the barrier for fear that they would all absorb into her. Already, she struggled to retain control over the three Kish’aa within her. Against such a throng, she would be helpless, her body jerked around like a marionette on a string.

  But she couldn’t retreat; the only avenue of escape was west, straight into the heart of the Gatherers. The direction the spirits of the dead wanted her to go.

  Vengeance! A hundred throats cried out in her mind. Vengeance!

  Justice! Hundreds more echoed, like a silent chant that only she could hear. Justice!

  The force of those cries staggered Aisha. Her head felt ready to explode from the humming, which grew louder as the spirits drew closer.

  You want vengeance? She shouted silently, trying to push back against the pressure mounting within her skull. Your only hope is to let me pass!

  Vengeance! Eldesse and Osirath’s twin sparks sizzled up her arms, like burning trails of fire through her veins. Once again, images and sensations flooded her mind unbidden.

  Sharp pain, cold steel, driven into the base of Osirath’s spine. Hard stone beneath his face, tears streaming from his eyes as he watched the Gatherers open Eldesse’s throat in front of him.

  Horror, anguish, loss—emotions that tore through Eldesse just as the Gatherers’ blade punched through her husband’s back, beneath his armor. Her mouth, opened to scream, suddenly covered by a strong, unyielding hand. A quick flash of pain across her throat, and she joined her husband on the floor.

  Hands reaching for each other, fingers intertwining as
darkness and silence claimed them.

  Aisha gasped, struggling for breath just as Eldesse had. Her legs wobbled, weak, as if her spine had been severed by the Gatherer’s dagger and she collapsed to the hard stone. She felt every twinge of pain, every twisting emotion that roiled through husband and wife as they died, eyes locked on each other.

  She needed vengeance against the ones that had killed her. No, not her—them, Eldesse and Osirath. She felt that driving ache to avenge them. In that moment, she couldn’t tell where her thoughts ended and those of the spirits began. Everything was a jumble, a distorted mess, and it seemed her mind hung between reality and the realm of the dead.

  I can’t! She tried to wield logic to drive back the upswell of emotions. There are too many. If I go, I will die, and there will be no one left to hear you.

  Energy crackled through her arms up to her palms. Tears blurred her vision as she stared down at her hands. Sparks danced between her fingers, bright, hot, and with a burning intensity that set every nerve in her limbs ablaze.

  Vengeance! Eldesse and Osirath, their voices accompanied by hundreds more. All their fear, hatred, sorrow, and anger was directed at the Gatherers behind her, the ones responsible for their deaths. Those feelings slammed into her with skull-shattering force, augmented and sharpened to crystal clarity by the Whispering Lily.

  Aisha feared she’d drown beneath the torrent of whispering voices. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t so much as summon the energy to climb to her feet. The Kish’aa pressed in around her, eyes pleading, mouths begging to be avenged, ethereal hands reaching for her.

  No! Aisha sucked in a ragged breath. Had she truly been drowning, she would have swum with every shred of her strength. Had she faced an enemy as implacable as the spirits around her, she would have fought until her arms gave out, her spear shattered, and her blood stained the floor.