Heirs of Destiny Box Set

by Andy Peloquin

  Aisha peered around the corner. Two more lightly-armored men had emerged from the mansion to join their companions on guard. At the sight of the four men, the spirits flared to life within her and lightning sizzled through her veins.

  “Avenge us!” the two slain Indomitables cried. “Blood for blood, death for death.” Energy crackled in her muscles and her limbs twitched. She could feel the spirits pulling on her body, aching to leap out of hiding to charge the men that had killed her.

  Aisha’s hand went to the pendant. Caution, she told the spirits. Charging in there will just get me killed. If you want your vengeance, we will have to be smart about it.

  Yet, try as she might, she could find no plan. With only one way in and out she could see, she’d have little chance of getting into the mansion and finding the killers, much less stopping them.

  The spirits’ pleading grew louder and their faces filled her mind, a fire of anger burning in their empty eyes.

  Aisha’s brow furrowed. Empty eyes?

  Something her father had once said returned to her. “Attuned to the Kish’aa, you will feel their feelings, see through their eyes.”

  A strange thought, yet one that refused to leave. She had felt the feelings of the dead. Radiana’s love for Briana had flooded Aisha with such force that it brought tears to her eyes. Eldesse and Osirath had filled her with a burning desire to let Briana know that they hadn’t betrayed her. And Thimara’s love for Uryan had burst out of Aisha, forcing her to speak to the stern-faced Guardian. The Secret Keeper’s need to complete her mission had ultimately led to the discovery of the poison causing the Azure Rot.

  The spirits clung not only to the places where they had lived, but the strongest of the feelings they experienced while alive. To Aisha, those were tangible, as real as her feelings for Kodyn.

  So what if what my father said is actually true? The question slammed into her. What if I literally can see through the eyes of the Kish’aa?

  Every spirit she’d seen had eyes empty in death, as if the window to their soul revealed nothing once their spark of life had faded. It seemed almost impossible to fathom, yet a part of her dared to believe her father had meant the words.

  Aisha put a hand to her pendant and summoned the spirits of the two Indomitables she had absorbed. You wish for vengeance against your killers?

  Yes! Their voices echoed in unison.

  Then lend me your aid, and I will make certain they are no more.

  A long silence met her words. Finally, one spoke. What would you have of us?

  Your eyes and ears. It felt so strange to say it—they were dead, after all, nothing more than sparks of life that remained in this world. Yet, stranger things had happened. She had dived into the deep end of the impossible with every new discovery of what the Kish’aa could do. Perhaps she was only as limited as she believed. Help me see and hear your killers.

  One of the soldiers materialized before her now. Blue-white light formed the figure of a man: compact, heavily-muscled, clad in black armor, carrying a sickle-shaped khopesh at his belt. His jaw was set, his expression stern and resolute.

  He held out a gauntleted hand to her. I will do as you ask.

  Aisha’s fingers stretched out of their own accord, reaching toward the spirit. But when she touched him, instead of pulling his spark into herself, she felt a piece of her mind or soul uprooted from within the core of her being. A gasp, a rush of cold, and suddenly Aisha could see through two sets of eyes. One stared at the faint outline of a ghostly soldier. The other looked down at a tall, broad-shouldered Ghandian woman crouching in a muddy alleyway.

  The strange sensation stole Aisha’s breath. She experienced a sudden dizziness, a rush of feelings at once familiar and alien. A deep, bone-numbing chill settled over her body—no, not her body, but that of the dead Indomitable.

  For a moment, she remained frozen in time, uncertain what to do. She’d only dared to hope this would work, but now that it had, she found herself lost in the surreality of being in two forms at once. Living and dead, her spirit split into pieces, yet still a part of her whole.

  She struggled against the confusion and tried to move. Not her body, but the phantasm of the slain Indomitable. Gritting her teeth, she set her eyes on the mansion and willed herself to move toward it. A faint twitch in her muscles told her she tried to move her body, but the spirit floated in the direction of the wall.

  Yes! Exhilaration coursed through Aisha’s veins. Slowly, as she drew closer to her target, she grew more aware of the two separate entities. She focused on the chilling weightlessness of the spirit, detaching her mind from the solid corporeal strength of her body. The Kish’aa moved more quickly, drifting toward the sandstone walls and simply passing through it, then through the wall of the house beyond.

  Through the ethereal eyes, she could see the interior of the mansion—once-fine, now fallen into a state of disrepair. Men moved through the rubble and dusty debris, clad in leather armor and carrying weapons. She followed them toward the large chamber, where they gathered around a table.

  At the head stood a man wearing the same leather armor as the assassins from the palace. “Brothers and sisters, servants of Hallar, our efforts have succeeded beyond our wildest expectations.” He turned to regard all of the people in the room. “But now begins our next step. If we succeed, Shalandra will be ours. But for that to happen, you all must play your parts.”

  “We serve Hallar Reborn!” Thirty voices echoed the call, and they saluted, fists crossed over their chests.

  “Good.” Satisfaction echoed in the man’s voice. “Then here is what our master has ordered you to do…”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Evren shouted, roared, and cheered with the throng besieging Killian’s smithy. His voice soon grew hoarse from the effort, his muscles exhausted from the constant push and pull of navigating the surging crowd.

  Yet he was drawing closer to his targets. The Ybrazhe thugs stood near the front entrance, directing the efforts to bring down Killian’s steel door with their crude wagon-turned-battering ram. Others called for ropes, ladders, anything they could use to scale the walls and destroy the impressive defenses.

  Evren risked a glance toward the three Syndicate heavies at the rear of the throng. The man in the center seemed to be calling the shots, relaying orders through the two at his side and the wary-eyed thieves that slipped up to them. The rioting mob was far too focused on the promise of riches within the smithy to notice that they were being herded, but Evren refused to be swept up in the chaos. He had to get within earshot of them while evading their notice.

  The Syndicate would know his face by now. Annat had snatched him on the Artisan’s Tier, and Blackfinger’s thugs had recognized him outside the Hall of Bounty. He had only the anonymity of being another face in the crowd for camouflage.

  That put him in a precarious position. If he hung near the back, he’d be spotted by the watching thugs. Too close to the front and he’d get trapped in the crush of people, unable to keep an eye on the Ybrazhe. Staying in the middle of the herd proved dangerously difficult. Angry Earaqi, Mahjuri, and Kabili crowded the walls, taking up ropes, poles, and ladders in their siege. People shoved, snarled, cursed, and spat all around him. His ribs, shoulders, and face ached from accidental blows from the tightly-packed bodies.

  Evren hauled on his rope with visible gusto but little actual effort. He had no desire to help the crowd break down Killian’s defenses—hells, if he could find a way to stymie their assault, he’d do it. But at that moment, he had to trust that Killian could handle himself. The blacksmith was prepared enough to erect these bloody impressive defenses; he’ll have a contingency plan for this, too.

  Well, perhaps not for precisely this situation. Killian likely had expected an assault from the Ybrazhe, not a city-wide riot. If he didn’t have a secret way out, he’d be fighting for his life soon enough.

  Evren’s heart leapt as the leader of the Ybrazhe thugs barked an order to his two comrad
es and, turning, strode off down an alley, away from the smithy.

  Now’s my chance!

  With effort, he shoved his way free of the crowd, earning a fortune in scowls, glares, insults, and more than a few accidental blows. An elbow struck his face hard enough to stagger him. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth and pain flared in his lip. He clapped his hand to his mouth and stumbled free of the crowd.

  The mindless imbecilic that struck had just given him the perfect cover. He spat the blood into his hand and quickly smeared it all over his face. It served as both camouflage for his features and a convenient excuse to stagger away from the crowd. The two Syndicate thugs barely glanced at him, their attention fixed on the siege.

  “Shalandra’s future, your future, lies behind those walls!” they shouted. “When it falls, we the people rise!” Their voices rang with feigned patriotic zeal; the crowd was simply too preoccupied and unthinking to recognize it.

  Evren made a show of lurching like a drunken sailor, half-falling as he stumbled past them. Yet the moment he slipped out of their line of sight, he hurried down the back alley after the Syndicate thug.

  He caught a glimpse of the big, slope-shouldered man turning a corner twenty paces ahead. You don’t get away that easy, you bastard! His only hope of breaking up the riot would be to put an end to the ones leading it. A leaderless mob was a very different animal than a driven, determined crowd; the Indomitables could deal with the former, but the latter would be a far more difficult beast to shackle.

  “Wait up!”

  Evren’s gut tensed as a cry came from behind him. He leaned into the lurching shamble, once again adopting the guise of a wounded, dazed rioter.

  The call came again. “Hey, you there, wait for us!”

  This time, he couldn’t ignore it. Clapping a hand to his bloodied mouth, Evren turned unsteadily and glanced back the way he’d come. Four Earaqi had broken off from the crowd and followed him down the alley. Yet their faces revealed none of the expected hostility. Indeed, they actually winced at the sight of the blood staining his cheeks and split lips and seeping through his fingers.

  “Damn, that looks bad!” The Earaqi who spoke couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than him. He held his club in the too-firm grip of an inexperienced fighter. His three comrades, all around the same age, appeared equally untrained.

  His mind raced. I’ve got to shake these four before I lose track of the Syndicate thug. The man had just disappeared around a corner—he couldn’t be more than a few dozen paces ahead. But wasting time on these Earaqi youths could cost him dearly.

  Evren nodded. “Hurts like a bastard.” He made a pretense of slurring his words, accentuating the severity of the injury. “I was going to find water to wash off, get someone to look at it.”

  “Come with me.” The oldest-looking of the four slapped Evren on the back. “We’ve got just the place.”

  Evren hesitated, unwilling to risk losing his Ybrazhe prey. Yet the Earaqi youths led him down the same alley the Syndicate thug had traveled moments earlier. Evren allowed himself to be towed along, feigning weakness yet keeping a wary eye on the lanes ahead.

  A few seconds later, he caught sight of the thug ducking into another side street, heading east—the same direction in which the Earaqi youths beside him traveled.

  Could I really be that lucky? A faint hope sprang to life in Evren’s mind. Blackfinger had established a sort of base of operations on the Cultivator’s Tier, the place where he gathered the Earaqi youths for his impassioned speech. Maybe the Ybrazhe have something like it here on the Artisan’s Tier as well.

  His hope died when his new companions turned down a narrow lane heading north, toward the shadow of the cliff face.

  “In here,” said one, motioning to a three-story house halfway up the alleyway. “This is ours now, and we’ve got all the food and supplies you could want!”

  “Yeah,” said another. A vicious triumph sparkled in his eyes. “You should see the way these Intaji live. Like the Pharus himself!” He beckoned Evren to follow. “Come and we’ll show you.”

  Keeper take it!

  Evren had an instant to decide what to do—maintain the ruse and lose the Syndicate thug, or find an excuse to break off from the Earaqi and risk raising their suspicion.

  A scream from within the house made the decision for him. He recognized the scream of terror—the raw, primal sound of a woman afraid for her life. He’d heard that cry far too many times before, during his years on the harsh streets of Vothmot.

  “Oh, good.” A fierce grin split one man’s lips. “Looks like Throuk’s brought us a little fun to go with our meal.” He shot Evren a leering smirk. “Let’s just hope she’s pretty, eh?”

  Evren mumbled something noncommittal and followed the four into the house. The interior might have once been neat and orderly, but now it was a scene as chaotic as the Artisan’s Tier. Furniture had been overturned and smashed. Looters had ransacked drawers, chests, and shelves, even pulling up wooden floorboards and ripping out ceiling beams in an attempt to find hidden valuables.

  In one corner of the house’s entrance chamber, a pile of stolen clothing, trinkets, and valuables lay in a scattered heap. Beside it, on a stuffed straw mattress, two young men wrestled with a screaming, struggling woman. Her white Intaji headband had slipped around her neck in her fight, and blood from her split lip stained the ripped, torn fragments of her kalasiris dress. The youths wrestled to pull down what remained of her garment to expose her golden-skinned flesh beneath. A third stood nearby, laughing and shouting encouragement while gorging himself on a handful of honeyed nuts.

  Acid rose to Evren’s throat. A cold fury settled over him as he took in the people in the room. One helpless, terrified woman fighting for her life and dignity. Seven Earaqi, all armed with short swords, daggers, and clubs. Him, with nothing but his fists, his dagger, and the indignity burning within him.

  He’d take those odds any day.

  His jambiyas slipped from their sheaths with a whisper of steel on leather. Evren struck the nearest Earaqi in the back of the head. The pommel of his dagger slammed into the base of the man’s spine, and the youth sagged like a dropped sack of rocks.

  Evren moved before the first body hit the ground. He crossed the remaining distance to the next two youths in a single step and drove his twin daggers into the backs of their legs. Steel sliced through tendons and muscle but Evren pulled the thrust just before the tip severed the large artery in the thigh. Two screams of pain rang out in the house as the wounded men fell.

  The remaining four Earaqi whirled toward the sound. Their eyes flew wide as they caught sight of Evren’s bloodstained daggers and fury-twisted face. The nearest youth raised his dagger and snarled. “You traitorous bas—”

  Evren’s fist shattered his teeth. The blow snapped the young man’s head backward, sending him staggering. He stumbled into the man behind him and the two fell in a tangle of limbs. Without hesitation, Evren charged the men still holding the captive Intaji. One released his grip on the woman’s wrist and reached for his sword. Evren drove his fist into the man’s solar plexus. The man fell, gagging and retching.

  Pain flared through Evren’s left shoulder and coursed down his arm. Evren spun toward the one that had been eating nuts, who now wielded a club. Time slowed to a crawl as the man struck again, a blow aimed at his head. Evren saw it coming and ducked, just enough for the truncheon to whistle past his head. He came up with a vicious uppercut backed by the power of his fury. The blow caught the young man in the scruffy, thin-bearded chin. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he crashed backward, landing with a hard thump on the floor.

  The woman’s scream of terror died half-formed on her lips. She stared up at Evren wide-eyed, her face white and pale beneath the mask of blood.

  “Go!” Evren shouted at her. “Get out of here while you still can!”

  He didn’t pause to see if she fled. Instead, he turned and rushed the last
man still standing. The youth had just managed to disentangle himself from his unconscious comrade and retrieved his sword when Evren’s boot crashed into his face. Blood sprayed from his shattered nose and lip and he fell back, stunned.

  He risked a glance back and found the half-clothed woman scrambling out the back door. A grim sense of satisfaction flooded him at the sight. He couldn’t stop the riots alone, not until he found the Ybrazhe. But he could do this.

  Let’s just hope the delay didn’t cost me that chance!

  The detour and struggle had taken less than a minute, but that would be more than enough time for the Syndicate thug to lose himself in the back alleys of the Artisan’s Tier. Evren would have to hurry and take some risky chances if he was to catch up.

  Jaw clenched, he turned and sprinted out of the house. He abandoned all pretense of the wounded rioter, but hurtled through the muddy, debris-clogged back alleys as fast as his feet could carry him. The distant roaring of the crowd threatened to drown out any sounds that could lead him toward the man he sought.

  Come on!

  He strained his senses to hear anything, his eyes roaming the back lanes in the direction the Syndicate thug had gone. A minute could be a lifetime if he made a mistake and turned the wrong way.

  Then he caught a flash of movement ahead. Hope flared to life within Evren once more and he sprinted toward the corner where the man had disappeared. There, striding down the alleyway, was the Ybrazhe thug he sought.

  Yes! He slowed his run just enough to keep pace with the man, yet not overtake him. When the man disappeared around another corner, he broke into a mad dash. Yet the sound of voices from the street he approached caused him to slow. He moved as silently as he could. This time, the roaring of the crowd worked in his favor, obscuring any sounds of his movement.

  As he drew closer, he heard the unmistakable rumble of conversation. Sucking in a deep breath to slow his racing heart, Evren risked a glance around the corner. Five men, including the one he’d followed, stood in the middle of the alley, deep in conversation.