Heirs of Destiny Box Set

by Andy Peloquin

Kodyn’s heart hammered in his chest as he followed the Secret Keepers in silence through the compact tunnel and down the steep decline. Two hours should be more than enough time. The source of the water had to be close for him to smell it on the air.

  Yet that scent proved deceiving. An hour passed and still they hadn’t reached the Heartspring. Just more rune-carved walls and bright-glowing lampstones, with the sound of rushing water growing louder, tantalizing him.

  How is that possible? His mind raced. The smell of water only carried so far, even in these sealed stone tunnels. After long minutes, he gave up trying to figure it out. Chalk that up to one more impossibility of Serenii ingenuity.

  The passage suddenly ended and Kodyn found himself stepping from the narrow tunnels into an enormous subterranean chamber. Smooth-carved stone rose to a high-vaulted ceiling easily twenty paces above his head, and the cavern appeared at least a thousand paces wide and long.

  Just ahead of them, the stone floor dropped off into a chasm a hundred paces wide. Kodyn caught a glimpse of water churned white rushing through the bottom, easily fifty paces below the level of the pathway. The underground river disappeared into darkness, flowing south to ultimately empty into the Frozen Sea.

  The scope and size of the Heartspring itself boggled Kodyn’s mind. An enormous dam straddled the river, a hundred paces tall and two hundred wide, built of a deep brown stone that seemed to repel the water rather than absorb it. Three stone water wheels ten times the height of a man sat in the river, turned by the fast-flowing current. A quiet whump, whump echoed from the mechanisms that connected the wheels to the dam. Kodyn guessed those pumped water to each of Shalandra’s three Wellsprings. The reservoir itself was the size of a small lake.

  Keeper’s teeth! He struggled to keep his jaw from dropping. His eyes roamed the colossal stone construction and he found it hard to imagine human builders attempting something of such breathtaking size. It would take all of the artisans in Praamis a hundred years to build that. No human mind could ever conceive of something as ingenious as the self-powering Heartspring. It had stood for thousands of years, never failing in its task of supplying Shalandra with water. The same could never be said for anything built by mankind.

  His wonder turned to horror as something new caught his attention: a glimmer of light off to his right. The pathway led along the cliff bordering the river before reaching a massive stone bridge that spanned one of the three rivers feeding into the reservoir. On the far side of the bridge, the glow of three oil lanterns revealed a score of dark-cloaked figures rushing about, rolling small wooden barrels toward the water’s edge.

  Ice flooded Kodyn’s veins. The Gatherers.

  Aisha growled a curse beside him.

  Suddenly, the whump, whump sound of the Heartspring grew louder. Kodyn sucked in a breath as the wheels turned faster and a sluice near the top of the dam slid open. Water poured through the aperture, deluging the water wheels and filling three channels that disappeared into the stone walls of the caverns.

  The channels that fill the Wellspring!

  Midnight had arrived, and the Gatherers were in position to fill the Heartspring with their poison.

  Robban’s hands moved at lightning speed. “We need to hit them now, before they dump their poison into the lake. Stay quiet and out of sight as long as possible, but go quickly.”

  Kodyn didn’t need to be told twice. He took off at a run, racing toward the bridge. His heart leapt into his throat as he pounded up the inclined stone surface. He could see no pillars or supports, nothing but enormous blocks of dark brown stone suspended on thin air above a gorge twenty paces wide. Yet it held, as sturdy as the cliffs upon which it rested.

  Heart hammering in his chest, Kodyn sprinted across the bridge. The whump, whump, whump of the fast-moving water wheels grew louder with every passing heartbeat, drowning out any sound his soft-soled boots made. The oil lanterns ahead provided scant illumination, but Kodyn had run through darkness before. Only this time, his destination held no gold, treasure, or escape from pursuing guardsmen—he ran to save all of Shalandra.

  He risked a backward glance and found Aisha and the Secret Keepers hot on his heels. Robban had outpaced the rest of her comrades and now ran a step behind him. Kodyn was fast, but the Secret Keeper was neck and neck by the time he reached the far side of the bridge.

  Together, they collided with the ranks of the Gatherers. Kodyn waited until the last minute to draw his long sword. His first swing, backed by the force of his charge, sheared through a Gatherer’s neck with a single powerful stroke. He hacked again, this time chopping the sharp blade deep into another cultist’s arm.

  The man’s scream shattered the stillness of the Heartspring. Kodyn loosed a wild shriek and brought the wounded Gatherer down with a thrust to the chest. His long sword punched through boiled leather, cloth, and flesh. The man fell back with a gurgling grunt, blood leaking from his mouth and staining his tunic.

  Then Kodyn slammed into the next Gatherer, a scrawny fellow with a rusted dagger and a fanatical snarl twisting his face. Kodyn cut off the man’s arm at the wrist and drove his own well-honed blade into the man’s chest. With a savage kick, he sent the dying body sagging backward into another cultist.

  A dark shadow hurtled through Kodyn’s field of vision. Aisha slammed into two more Gatherers wrestling with a heavy barrel. The tip of her spear opened a throat and dug a deep furrow into the second man’s shoulder. The Gatherer cried out, dropping the sword he’d tried to fumble loose from its sheath, and staggered backward. Right into the man that had been holding a barrel tilted over the Heartspring.

  Kodyn’s heart froze as the Gatherer was knocked off-balance and the uncorked cask yawed wildly, about to drop its vile contents into the reservoir. Once in the water, it would be sucked into the now-open sluice and spread to the Wellsprings.

  No!

  Relief surged within him as a brown-robed figure snatched up the barrel before it fell. The Secret Keeper managed to keep a tight hold on the wooden cask even as the now-recovered Gatherer attacked. The cultist got off two lucky strikes, one cutting a shallow cut across the priest’s forearm, before another Secret Keeper brought him down beneath a flurry of blows.

  Kodyn cut down his opponent—a woman with a red Earaqi headband and a wild light in her eyes—with a cross-body slash. In the heartbeat between one enemy and the next, he had a chance to marvel at the Secret Keepers’ abilities.

  The unarmored, brown-robed priests fought with breathtaking skill. Every movement was precise, each strike placed with perfect control to inflict maximum damage. Their bare-handed blows snapped bones, pulverized flesh, crushed throats, and shattered noses. When the Gatherers struck at them, the Secret Keepers simply flowed out of the way. The instant after steel whistled through empty air, the priests were back on the attack. One reached up to his circlet and tore it free of his head. White-enameled steel uncoiled like a snake as the Secret Keeper lashed out. The whip-like sword laid open his enemy’s throat to the bone. A heartbeat later, the white steel headband once again encircled his forehead, with only a hint of blood on its razor-sharp edge. The Secret Keeper’s empty hands flew with the deadly precision of a blademaster’s sword as he brought down another cultist.

  Then the instant passed and the next Gatherer charged Kodyn with an upraised short sword and a cry of “For Hallar!” Kodyn’s lightning thrust met a wall of steel, and the man forced him back three steps, forcing him on the defensive. Kodyn gave ground, maneuvering the man away from the barrels of poison and his comrades.

  His foot struck a stone and he wobbled, his sword flying wide. A triumphant light shone in the Gatherer’s eyes as he thrust his short blade at Kodyn’s exposed chest.

  Yet it had simply been a ruse to sucker the man into making just that mistake. Kodyn’s quick horizontal chop knocked aside the thrust and laid open the Gatherer’s throat to the bone. The man’s eyes flew wide and he clapped his hands to his neck. Blood gushed between his fingers and he gas
ped for air, mouth agape. Slowly, like a felled oak, he toppled forward to land face-first on hard stone.

  “Kodyn!” Aisha’s scream pierced his ears. “Stop him!”

  Kodyn’s gaze snapped toward Aisha, following her outstretched finger toward a Gatherer that stood a short distance from the rest. The man had been caught apart from his comrades, but he’d taken advantage of the distraction to seize a barrel and haul it toward the water’s edge. He now stood poised over the reservoir, tugging on the stopper.

  Time slowed to a crawl. Kodyn knew he’d never make it to the man in time. A throwing dagger could take down the Gatherer, but he couldn’t risk the man falling into the water with his toxic burden. Yet he couldn’t do nothing. The sluice was open, the Heartspring pumping water to the city above.

  Horror coursed through Kodyn as he sprinted toward the man. He seemed to be moving through mud, every step painfully slow. His eyes fixed on the Gatherer wrestling with the stopper. The ten-pace distance seemed immense, but Kodyn pushed the thought from his mind. He couldn’t contemplate failure—it meant death for all in Shalandra.

  A Gatherer stepped in front of him. The woman—another wearing an Earaqi headband—was already mid-swing, her short sword chopping down at his neck. Kodyn had no time to slow his full sprint or dodge. He could only watch, helpless, as the blade whistled toward his throat.

  Steel clanged off steel a hand’s breadth from his flesh. Aisha’s assegai knocked aside the short sword and her dagger laid open the Gatherer’s forearm to the bone.

  Kodyn barreled right into the cultist, knocking her from her feet. Pain flared through his chest where her sharp shoulder had dug into him, but he couldn’t slow. His eyes snapped back to the Gatherer and found the man still wrestling with the bung. Sparing a moment to bless whatever cooper had driven the stopper home, he raced on.

  Ten paces turned to five. The stopper pulled free of the barrel with a loud pop.

  Five steps became four, then three. Drops of clear liquid splashed from the opening as the Gatherer hefted the barrel to his shoulder.

  Three paces, two paces, one. The cultist turned toward the water’s edge and tilted up the cask.

  Kodyn angled his steps and threw himself at the Gatherer from the side. He wrapped his arms around the man’s waist, his legs driving hard to knock the man backward, away from the cliff’s edge. The Gatherer collapsed beneath him and Kodyn rammed one of his knives into the man’s side. A scream of pain echoed loud in Kodyn’s ears.

  Followed by a deluge of liquid splashing over Kodyn’s face, nose, and mouth. Kodyn pressed his lips together in an attempt to keep out the poison. Too late. The thick, clear liquid seeped into his mouth. In his death struggles, the Gatherer beneath him elbowed Kodyn in the side of the head. The attack stunned Kodyn and his swallow reflex kicked in. Foul-tasting poison slid down his throat.

  The dying Gatherer beneath him fixed Kodyn with a triumphant glare. The grinding of the water wheel drowned out his voice, but Kodyn saw his lips forming weak works. “The Long Keeper…comes for…all.” His breath rattled in his throat and his head slumped back to the hard stone.

  Kodyn pushed off the dead cultist and staggered to his feet. Pain ripped through his guts, so all-consuming it sapped all the strength from his legs. He hit the ground hard, his head ringing, but the agony coursing through his stomach drowned out any sensation.

  The poison’s bite burrowed through his stomach and into his body, sending chills down his spine and burning him from the inside out. A cry of horror escaped his lips—it sounded so weak, so helpless.

  In that moment, Kodyn knew. I’m dying.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Anger burned like a forge within Issa’s gut as her eyes roamed the masses of people sitting on Death Row. Like the crowds camped along the Way of Chains, they said nothing as she, Etai, and the company of Indomitables marched up toward the Cultivator’s Tier, simply fixed her with their burning gazes. The silent protest of their anger-filled eyes drilled into the core of her being.

  Navigating the crowds while maintaining tight formation proved a challenging task. The people made a gap wide enough for two soldiers to march abreast, but it was tight enough that Issa and her trainees had to place their feet with care for fear of kicking or jostling the seated men and women. Accident or not, anything, no matter how minor, could turn this peaceful demonstration violent in an instant.

  Yet, it was the peace and quiet of their protest that made Issa so furious. The people had just watched their Child of Gold arrested and executed, yet they responded with composed calm. The Fifty-Day Revolt had turned the city red with the blood of Indomitables and citizens alike—this seemed all the more eerie for its utter stillness.

  Her fists clenched by her side. Damn the Keeper’s Council!

  The Necroseti had only had scant evidence of Aterallis’ crimes—the discovery of the bodies in the derelict warehouse he occupied could almost be incriminating, yet under normal circumstances, further investigation would be warranted. Issa had no doubt that this, like all of the Council’s actions, had political motivations. Aterallis represented a threat they could not control through bribes or intimidation. The Keeper’s Council had seen death as the only way to deal with him.

  An ugly thought bloomed in Issa’s gut. What if the Keeper’s Council actually set him up?

  Once, she might have shrugged off the thought. Now, after weeks of hearing of the Necroseti’s machinations and connivances, she couldn’t dismiss it as easily. After what the Keeper’s Council did to Briana, is it that hard to believe that they could do something like this as well? Try as she might, she couldn’t shake off the doubt.

  But she couldn’t direct all of her anger at the Necroseti. They had given the order, but Lady Callista had chosen to enforce it. And she, Issa, had carried it out. She hated herself for not putting up more of a fight. She’d nearly battled an Indomitable Dictator over one helpless Mahjuri found beneath a desecrated statue. His death wouldn’t have made any difference, yet she’d refused to let the Indomitables abuse him. So why hadn’t she raised her voice in protest, knowing the potential consequences of Aterallis’ execution?

  The question followed her all the way through the Cultivator’s Tier, up Death Row, and into the Artisan’s Tier. “Because Lady Callista ordered me to” just didn’t sit right with her. She could find no satisfactory answer, and that rankled all the more.

  The sight of Lady Callista Vinaus standing at the gate to the Defender’s Tier—a solid, unmoving statue of black steel and iron willpower—only added to her worries. There was only one reason for the Lady of Blades herself to be here: she expected the worst and had come to personally ensure nothing got out of hand.

  Issa saluted as she approached the gate, and the Lady of Blades returned the salute. “Come with me, Prototopoi.” She fixed Etai with a stern gaze. “Both of you.”

  Issa and Etai exchanged curious glances but fell in step behind Lady Callista without a word. They followed the Lady of Blades to the three-story house that had been converted into a War Room. The city of Shalandra remained spread out across the broad wooden table in the center of the main chamber. Now, a multitude of thick red dots covered the two lowest of Shalandra’s tiers.

  Lady Callista turned to the two of them. “Tell me, is Death Row clogged all the way to the East Gate?”

  Issa nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  A scowl cracked Lady Callista’s stony expression. “And the Way of Chains?”

  “That’s where it’s most congested, Lady Callista.” Issa stepped up to the map and swept a finger along the Way of Chains. “It’s worst here, around Murder Square and Trader’s Way.”

  “The people are holding silent vigil over Aterallis’ body,” Etai spoke up.

  That brought another flash of anger to Issa’s gut. Aterallis’ severed head had been mounted on a spike alongside common criminals, his corpse hung in a cage above Murder Square—a final insult to the man that had preached peace, a deafening warning t
o all the Mahjuri that the Necroseti would not countenance any threat to their rule.

  Lady Callista growled a soft curse and stared down at the map. After a moment, she lifted her eyes to Issa. “We need to do something about those people. Things could get worse much faster than we expect if they don’t move.”

  Issa’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. There’s no rioting, looting, or violence. They’re simply…sitting there.”

  “The peaceful protest may prove far more disruptive than any amount of violence.” Lady Callista’s face hardened into a solemn mask. She swept a hand along both Trader’s Way and Death Row. “How will the people eat if no food can get in or out of the city? And if all the Kabili are protesting, who will mine the shalanite that the Pharus exports to bring in that food. How many will starve or die of thirst because the ways to the Wellsprings are blocked off?” She shook her head. “Things are more dire than you realize.”

  She glanced around—only the Elders of the Blade and a trio of the highest-ranked Indomitable Executors stood in the room. Worry darkened all of their faces.

  “The Halls of Bounty on the three lower tiers are nearly empty. There aren’t enough stores to feed all the Earaqi. The next shipment of grain is due to arrive tomorrow morning, but if it can’t get through Shalandra to deliver the food—”

  “There will be no food to distribute.” Cold dread sank like a stone in Issa’s gut. “The starving people will just get hungrier.”

  “Until the gnawing in their bellies leaves them no choice but to take up arms against the ones they believe responsible for the famine,” Lady Callista said. “The protests may be peaceful now, but hunger drives men and women to do desperate things.” Her expression grew contemplative. “Which is why I can’t shake off the thought that the timing of this protest is deliberate. As if whoever is leading it knew that the city’s stores had run low.”

  Issa’s jaw dropped. “Leading the protest?” She hadn’t seen any individuals sparking the outrage against the Indomitables or commanding the people to sit. The Mahjuri, Kabili, and Earaqi had simply acted.