“Jostephon does, but he hasn’t been outside the city. He hasn’t seen.” Alriyn wouldn’t have gone either were it not for rumor of a specific text he could find. He hadn’t found the book he’d sought, but what he’d seen had worried him even more. “Sometimes I think he forgets what happened when the Deshmahne last attacked our home.”
“The Denraen stopped that attack.”
Alriyn nodded. “They did. And this horror in the north? What if it is something like the ancient threat?”
“Only the gods helped us the last time,” Karrin spoke.
Alriyn knew the truth in that. His people all believed their ancestors had stopped the ancient threat. It was a time when the land had been ravaged, most destroyed, though none really understood how. Or why. All they knew was that his ancestors, the Founders of the Magi, had been key to the survival. And even then, he suspected they had done little but slow the tide
But someone had helped. Someone only referenced in the mahne as the nemah, the ancient word for Uniter. They had learned little about the Uniter since the ancient threat and the Founding, most of the records lost in the destruction, but had learned he was somehow chosen to bring peace when it was needed. He knew this person had helped during the threat, had slowed the progression. What if they needed such a person now?
“We failed the last time we tried,” Karrin said again, as if reading his thoughts.
It was true. His people had tried several times to choose a Uniter when war called for such a person. None had been successful.
He shook his head. “The mahne is explicit,” he began. “The Uniter is the key when the balance of peace begins to fail.”
“We have failed,” Karrin said again.
“Should we let our failures keep us from trying again?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly. “What do you propose?”
He looked into her gray eyes for a long time, hoping to see something he knew he would need. He could not move forward without it. “Nothing yet,” he answered. “A council only.”
“But the Council has already decided...”
“Not the Council,” he interrupted. “A council. Fewer.” He looked away, thoughtfully, before continuing. “Myself, you, a few others. We study only, prepare for what might come.”
Her eyes narrowed at the idea.
“Haerlin, Bothar,” he stated.
“Isandra,” she offered.
He nodded. He had wondered about Isandra.
“Why did you bring this to me?” Karrin asked him, her eyes almost begging for the answer.
He waited a long while before answering. “A feeling,” he answered truthfully. He had never been very close to Karrin, and he knew it strange to trust her with this. He just felt he could.
A slow nod was her only response.
“We must wait until the others return with their delegates,” he spoke. “It’s possible Jostephon was right and that they can be used.”
She nodded again, quiet. “We should trust the Eldest.”
“I trust him. He knows more than any Mage alive about our past.”
“Which is why we should listen to his recommendations. What do you fear?”
Alriyn sighed. Jostephon might be the most knowledgeable scholar alive, but Alriyn had studied under another Mage, one who had warned him of something like this, almost as if he had a prophecy, though Tresten didn’t possess that ability. “It’s not what I fear, it’s what Tresten feared.”
Karrin’s eyes narrowed. “You know how the Eldest felt about Tresten.”
“I know. Which is why I won’t include him until we are certain. When we know more, we can pull Jostephon in.”
“You know where this could lead, Alriyn.” It was a statement. She caught on quickly.
“Yes,” he answered. If he were wrong with this plan, it could lead to another Magi failure, and if that happened, would the Deshmahne use that as an opportunity to eliminate the Magi influence for good?
Chapter Seventeen
Jakob awoke slowly. As he opened his eyes, he had to squint against light filtering through the trees overhead. His head still pounded, but it was a different sensation. This throbbing was a traditional headache, almost as if he’d been drinking too much. An awareness of the pain in his chest and leg came to him, and a sudden memory of the battle came with it.
He was alive.
How? He remembered the Deshmahne standing over him, laughing at him. He remembered fading to blackness, aware that he would die. Yet something had happened. Something had saved him.
The animal, his mind prompted.
He remembered the ear-splitting roar, could almost still hear it.
Had he actually seen it or was it a dream?
He was no longer sure. He thought that he had, thought that he’d glimpsed a blur of reddish fur and a face larger than any wolf, but wondered now if he had. Could he have imagined eyes that seemed intelligent in a way that no animal should be?
Jakob stood and looked around. It was still daylight. Bodies littered the ground, and he saw no movement around him. He caused much of that, but didn’t know how he’d managed to survive when none of the Denraen around him had. His head hurt to think too much on it.
A large pool of blood led to a body with arms covered in tattoos that led up to his shoulders. This was the man he’d faced, the Deshmahne who’d nearly killed him. His neck ended, and jagged edges of flesh remained where his head had been torn from his body. He tasted a hint of bile as he struggled not to vomit.
All around the man were huge paw prints. Though Jakob had never been much of a tracker, he’d not seen anything like it. They were catlike, but each was as large as his footprint. They were scattered around where the man had fallen, and several lighter footprints peppered the ground near where he had lay, but nowhere else were they found. It was as if the creature had materialized out of thin air, then disappeared.
Jakob staggered around the grove, looking at the bodies and searching for signs of life. His leg throbbed nearly as badly as his head. The combined pain of the two enabled him to ignore the pain in his back. None of the horses remained, scattered or slaughtered.
It took all the energy he could muster to look upon the dead. Jakob finally vomited after looking at the third Denraen, recognizing the northman. His eyes were glassy in death, a huge slash in his throat.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. It had been farther than he remembered.
The tree where Rit and Tian had made their stand stood scarred and bloodied, nearly as much a participant as any of the Denraen. Tian lay facing the ground, his crossbow partially underneath him and his body propped at a strange angle. Nearby was Rit. Jakob knelt carefully next to him.
Rit had fallen on his back. One leg twisted behind him, and Jakob couldn’t see his left arm, though whether it was missing or covered in debris, he wasn’t certain. The man was gone.
Rit’s chest moved.
A huge gash in his side oozed blood and made a sucking sound as Rit struggled to breathe. His breaths came slowly, raggedly. Gently touching Rit’s right shoulder, he realized the man’s left arm was missing rather than hidden.
How did he still live?
“Rit?” He didn’t expect a response.
Rit’s eyes flickered open briefly, and a spark of recognition flitted across them. “The historian.” The words came out wetly, and Jakob heard the wound in his stomach bubble as he spoke.
Jakob nodded before catching himself. “Yes.”
Rit struggled, trying to move before finding himself unable to do so. Jakob placed a gentle restraining hand on his shoulder and Rit slowly relaxed. “How many?”
Did he tell the truth? Rit could not survive. Did he not deserve peace?
His pause was too long.
“Just you?” Rit asked.
“Yes.”
“The Deshmahne?” Rit whispered. His words were losing power.
“Dead.”
A smile actually crossed Rit’s face. “
I told you… not hindrance.”
Jakob laughed as tears welled up in his eyes. He blinked them back. “What now?” Fear and uncertainty overpowered him. How did he expect Rit to answer him?
“You must go…” he started before falling silent.
Jakob watched his chest slowly rise and fall with long pauses in between. Each time, he worried Rit had died.
“North… go north,” he said finally. “Avaneam... trunk. Meet Endric. Key to stopping... Deshmahne. Maybe… more.” He took a breath, and Jakob thought it his last, then his eyes snapped open. “May the gods protect…”
Rit fell silent again except for the slow sucking sound of his chest.
Jakob knelt back, waiting for Rit to regain consciousness, and after a while, wondered if he would. Jakob started to stand but Rit spoke again.
“We failed…” His chest rose and fell and did not rise again.
Tears streamed down Jakob’s face.
Whatever else Rit might think, the gods didn’t protect Jakob. He’d known their wrath his entire life and had done nothing to provoke it. How could he do what needed to be done? He was no soldier—but what was he now?
He didn’t know the answer. Could he still be Novan’s apprentice after what he’d been forced to do? Novan asked him to observe—not intervene—but if he hadn’t, he would have died.
More than that, it had felt natural for him to hold the sword. There was a rightness to it, a comfort he couldn’t explain, but now he had so many questions and no one to answer them.
How had he managed to live when all the Denraen had died? What was the vibration within him when he held the sword?
A part of him was afraid of the answer. Was it real or imagined? Both frightened him. If imagined, it meant the madness came for him. If real… it meant he had some other power. Maybe something like the Deshmahne.
Jakob stood slowly, shoving the thought aside. The bodies had already started to stink. He walked back to where he had fallen and recovered his sword, his injured leg loosening up so that he limped less.
His head still pounded, and the movement mixed with the bright sunlight didn’t help.
Blood covered his sword. The sight of it nearly made him retch again so he wiped it off on one of the raiders. The blood wiped off easily, almost repelled from the blade, and he sheathed the sword.
He forced himself to ignore the death around him as he struggled deciding what to do next. His gaze lingered on the trunk Rit died trying to protect. Sunlight glittered off it, making the sides almost glow. Anywhere else, it would be beautiful.
There was no easy answer, yet only one true choice.
He had to go north. No one else could do it now.
He would find Endric and return the trunk to the general. It meant traveling north alone, into dangers possibly worse than Deshmahne, facing whatever caused the strange rumors about the north.
Jakob took the trunk from where Rit protected it, hefting it and noting it not heavy, but the size made it awkward. When he stood, he wasn’t able to look at Rit and Tian lying motionless any longer.
A thought came to him as he turned away. He dislodged Tian’s crossbow from beneath him, once so deadly in his hands but useless in his dead grip, and strapped it to his belt so it hung opposite his sword.
Endric and Novan were members of this Conclave but what was it about the trunk that was so important? They were questions he’d have to reach Avaneam—or find the general first—to have answers. How was he to even reach Avaneam? He’d heard mention of the Elasiin Path, and Siirvil’s Peak, but all he knew was that he had to go north.
The trunk was too ungainly to carry in his arms for long, and he hoped against logic that he’d find the horses. Luck struck near the edge of the trees. His own horse had become ensnared by a branch and stood grazing. His saddle and saddlebags were intact and undisturbed. At the sight, he hesitantly offered a silent prayer to the nameless gods.
It was the first time he had prayed in years.
Chapter Eighteen
Alriyn glanced over to the Mage joining him as he strolled through the darkened hall, his gaze skimming past the teralin sculptures, the metal giving off a reassuring warmth. There had been a time when the Magi worked with it regularly, thinking it a way to reach the gods, but that had changed when the Deshmahne demonstrated the dangers of it. Now it was decorative only, and harmless.
Karrin walked quickly, her shorter legs forced to take long strides to match his gait. Something about her was determined tonight. The thrust of her jaw or the tight cast to her eyes, he couldn’t decide. Either way, something was on her mind. It was best to wait for her to tell him. She wouldn’t wait long.
“They’re here,” she spoke finally. She had waited until they rounded a corner and saw the hall empty.
He nodded. Word spread quickly through the palace these days. Almost too quickly.
She grabbed lightly at the sleeve of his brown robe. “Have you seen them?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
He patted her hand. He knew it did little to soothe her. “Tomorrow, Karrin.”
“But your niece!” she said urgently. Her voice was almost too loud for the hall, and she looked around quickly.
No one followed. He had not expected any differently. “My niece will come to me in time.” Now he understood the track of her thoughts. The Deshmahne. A foul religion, a taint upon all the good the Urmahne had done, yet they had gained influence, especially in the south. Now they chose to wield it and attacked the Denraen.
What did that mean?
Nothing good. The High Priest had been pressing for decades—longer than most understood. Finally, he reached across the sea, the long arm of his influence touching Gom Aaldia. They had even attempted attacking Vasha once, seeking Urmahne relics, but that had not been a true Deshmahne attack; they had help. The Denraen were better prepared now—Endric ensured they were—and they understood the Deshmahne in ways they had not before.
It was a twisted religion, yet powerful with arcane magics he wished he understood better. It was the reason he’d left Vasha, wanting to see for himself how far the Deshmahne had pressed, yet when he’d heard the rumors out of the north, it was as if he were compelled to investigate.
“The prophecy—”
Alriyn shot her a silencing glare. “We can’t speak of that openly.”
“But you’re the one who came to me. You said we needed to find the Uniter, not these delegates.”
The peacebringer. That wasn’t entirely what he’d suggested, though there was sense in it. “I said we needed to use our influence once more.”
Karrin nodded. “Then we must use it on these delegates.”
“I intend to, especially now with word of the Deshmahne attack upon the Magi.”
Alriyn had been shocked when Princess Danvayn, one of the delegates, had made it to Vasha with word of the attack on the plains of Gom Aaldia. If not for the badly wounded Denraen standing next to the delegate when she’d arrived, Alriyn would not have believed it. Danvayn had barely survived, yet she had. What would have happened if the Coamdon princess had been killed crossing through Gomald? He shuddered to think of that.
More bloodshed, and what would that mean for the mahne? It was an ancient text, a fragment that their entire belief system—and the Urmahne faith—had been founded upon. It demanded peace, warned of the risks if they failed, risks that were greater than any outside the Council would—or could—understand.
More than that, it was the first prophecy. The text was incomplete, lost over time so that all the Magi possessed was but a partial version of the original, the mahne spoke of a time when a Uniter of Men would arise. The Magi had attempted—and failed—to choose this person in the past.
Alriyn wondered if they had the translation correct. The ancient language called this person the nemah, which translated to Uniter of Men, but like many things in the ancient language, it could be translated in other ways. All his studies had failed to clarify it for him.
There had been other times when the Council thought they needed to choose the nemah, the Uniter, but they had failed. It made them hesitant. Now that the Deshmahne gained strength quickly and forced their will and beliefs upon a continent, no longer did the south know peace; a thousand years of balance now lost. Constant violence was now the norm. Did that not demand the Uniter?
Alriyn shook his head, thinking to the delegates.
They were a step in the right direction. They would help with the Magi influence, which would keep them from needing to choose a Uniter. They had failed too often for them to choose again.
Yet, it troubled him. Danvayn was only the first arrival—other delegates still traveled toward the city. Would Roelle be safe?
She has learned the sword. She will be safe.
He had long suspected the Magi gifts extended to the physical but had not been certain. It had been centuries since his people had needed anything save their minds for protection.
Since we became Urmahne. And since then, there had been little need for any type of protection. The Urmahne taught peace and harmony. Balance. The mahne.
And we are Urmahne.
“Tonight will not make a difference to those we can use,” he answered, finally.
“Have you called for Haerlin?” she asked.
Haerlin would be the next they approached to bring into his council. “After,” he answered and her gaze flickered around the hall. She was nervous.
She squeezed the fabric of his sleeve. “I’m sorry, Alriyn. It’s just that I’ve been...” Her gaze shifted around the hall again before settling on him once more. “Each day, I hear information that grows more and more worrisome.”
He turned to face her and looked into her gray eyes as he spoke. “It’s the same for me, Karrin. Worse, though, is what I’ve seen myself.” The memories haunted him at night. The towns desolate. The people scared, terrified, and the entire northland somehow wrong. He could think of no other way to describe what he’d felt.
Too much at once to be coincidence. Deshmahne pressing from the south, strange attacks in the north, and a madness spreading through many of the cities like a plague. The priests called for action and the healers had no answers. Too much at once, too much unknown.
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