chapter 17
Amric sat his bay gelding in the courtyard by the southern city gate. High above him, brooding clouds scudded across an iron sky. The mantle of night had been peeled away, but the new dawn had brought nothing of its usual comforting warmth or color. In fact, he mused, it looked as if the cordial revolving arrangement between night and day had ended at last and they had fought each other to a standstill, leaving the land caught somewhere in between. He gave a rueful shake of his head; such peculiar thoughts did not become a warrior, and he should instead be focused upon the coming journey. In any event, the stormy skies were a blessing in the sense that they would not have to endure the crushing heat, and their supply of water would last all the longer.
The bay snorted and tossed its head, prancing back a few steps, and Amric kept a firm hand while allowing the horse to work off some of its nervous energy. It was a spirited animal, eager to be off after its time confined to the Sleeping Boar’s stables. Would that I shared your carefree enthusiasm, he thought with a smile as he patted the glossy neck, but then, I know more of where we are heading.
All about, the city was shaking itself awake. More and more of the citizenry seeped into the shadowed streets with each passing moment, and the guards at the gate welcomed the next shift with bleary-eyed gratitude. Amric watched as the heavily laden carts of a portly baker and a short, furry stonemason almost collided. He winced, waiting for the inevitable shouting match as to which was more at fault, but instead the two merely exchanged a tight nod before hastening past each other on their respective errands. They were not alone in their demeanor, he noted. The subdued manner evinced by the residents of Keldrin’s Landing owed something to the cold, early hour, but there was of course a larger pall hanging over everyone. Two nights had passed since the abrupt morning attack that shattered the eastern gate, and the city was still holding its breath for the next.
Amric absorbed it all, the sights, the sounds and smells of a city in the vise-like grip of fear. He took it in with eyes the same hue as the unforgiving sky above, the eyes of a man raised in battle. The city––nay, the very land, and perhaps the world as well––was being slowly strangled. He wondered if the city would enjoy another unhindered breath. For that matter, he wondered if anyone would.
The crisp clatter of hooves approaching on the cobbled courtyard shook him from his reverie. Valkarr rode toward him on his black dun and drew rein alongside. Amric gave his old friend a broad, warm smile, and in return the Sil’ath warrior inclined his wedge-shaped head in a salute overdone with mock formality.
“Quit needling me, you great oaf!” Amric laughed. “I am no longer your warmaster, if you will recall. Out here, we are merely friends, as we have been since before either of us could hold a blade.”
Valkarr snorted. “Perhaps before you could hold a blade, with those useless pink paws of yours. As for me, I am quite certain I held my first breath upon entering this world until my hand curled around a hilt. There is a proper order to be observed, after all.”
Amric grinned. It was a vast relief to have his friend hale and hearty again.
“It is a fine joke the fates play on us, is it not?” Valkarr said.
“How do you mean?”
“Putting two friends who wish nothing of magic on a path to try to put the world’s magic aright,” the Sil’ath said with a chortling hiss.
“A fine joke indeed,” Amric said with a laugh, though he found himself quickly sobering. He realized with some discomfort that his viewpoint on magic had begun to alter of late, and he sought to trace the source of that unwelcome change. Was it a sense of gratitude for whatever force had intervened on their behalf at Stronghold? There had certainly been plenty of evidence of the catastrophic effects of magic to counterbalance one beneficial event. Had he been swayed by Bellimar’s description of Essence being intrinsic to life, being everywhere and an irrevocable part of all living things? Or was it perhaps Bellimar’s own struggle for redemption after an unmatched descent into evil, where magic played a key role in both parts of the tale? Whatever it was, he no longer viewed magic with the simple conviction he had enjoyed before.
He also found a new flicker of empathy within himself for the creatures whose magical natures were twisting in pain along with the land, for he had to entertain the possibility that they were somehow driven to their hostile actions. Some of them might be much the same as the mountain cats back home; those predators were wild and dangerous, to be sure, but only when wounded or cornered did they lash out without discrimination, in a berserk rage.
He frowned. Of course, he thought darkly, it could be that he had become tainted from prolonged exposure to the corruptive influence of Essence, and his own aversion was a defense that had been overrun.
“We are ready, yes?” Valkarr asked after a moment. His friend regarded him askance, seeming to sense the shift in his mood.
“Yes, we are ready,” Amric said with a lop-sided grin that he hoped would reassure.
“Not just yet,” called a voice from across the courtyard. Bellimar rode toward them on his sway-backed dun mare, with Halthak beside him on his own chestnut mare. “You will not be rid of us so easily, swordsman.”
“You are late,” Amric returned. “I promised to leave with the dawn, and you’ll not convince me that you, of all people, overslept.”
Bellimar barked a laugh, but his gaze darted about the courtyard. No one paid their conversation any heed, however. Amric felt the reference was too obscure to cause worry, but then he supposed the layered cautions of keeping such a secret for centuries would easily stir to the surface. It was a revelation of Bellimar’s strange situation that, freed of both the mortal need to rest and the vampire’s need to hide from the sun during the day, the old man never slept. It must be a relief for the vampire, he thought, that he need no longer maintain the ruse of sleeping at night and eating sparingly with claims of delicate digestion.
“Indeed not,” the old man said. “Most of the stabled horses did not welcome my presence, and I required some assistance from the good healer here in retrieving my mount so as not to cause a panic among the irritable beasts. At least there is one regal lady among the swine who is a more astute judge of character.” He gave his placid mare a soothing pat on the neck.
A shrill whinnying turned their heads in a new direction. Syth entered the courtyard from a cobbled side lane, wrestling with the reins of a spirited smoke grey horse. Thalya followed on her black mare, her expression caught between alarm and amusement as she watched the thief and his mount dance in every direction except a straight line. Syth wore a broad grin, and the excited breeze swirling around him fluttered both his clothing and the horse’s flowing mane.
“Is he not magnificent?” he crowed. “I found a trader willing to part with this fine young stallion for a song! I think it only fitting that a warrior of my caliber should possess a mighty steed of war such as this one.”
Thalya burst into rich, genuine laughter, doubling over in her saddle. “That is no war stallion,” she gasped. “It is a mare, though I will grant you it is a tall one, and it would be generous to call it broken to the saddle. I thought you knew since the evidence was, ah, plain to see.” She cast a meaningful glance at the underside of the horse.
Syth’s face fell. “Not a war stallion, eh? So that fat fool of a tradesman took advantage of me.” Then he shrugged, and the grin reappeared in a flash as he raised his eyebrows at the huntress. “I thought perhaps it was a kindred warrior spirit that caused the animal to be so unquestionably drawn to me, but now that I know it is female its attraction is, of course, less of a mystery.”
Thalya wiped away mirthful tears. “Better keep your charms in reserve for now, thief, at least until you can tell the difference between stallion and mare. One never knows where the next such mistake will lead you. And I will ignore, for now, your unwise implication that a woman cannot possess the spirit of a warrior.”
The pair quieted as they drew rein before Amric, Syth looking somewhat abashed and Thalya’s face becoming a frozen mask as her emerald gaze fell upon Bellimar. Amric noted that the huntress had never allowed Halthak to heal her, but the bruising and abrasions had subsided enough now that her features were more evident. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, even with her features settled into lines of anger and suspicion, as they were at the moment.
“I must admit, I am surprised to see you all,” Amric said. “Unless you are here to see us off?”
The others exchanged glances, but Bellimar spoke first, the intensity of the old man’s gaze like a physical thing pressing against him. “There are questions yet to be answered, swordsman,” he said. “I will be there when the mysteries are solved.”
“I go where the fiend goes,” Thalya said immediately through clenched teeth.
Amric turned to Syth. The man drew himself up in his saddle, and his words simmered as he spoke. “I spent months in a cell, waiting for an inglorious death at the hands of a madman. I had nothing of freedom, excitement or change in scenery, and no chance to strike out at a deserving foe.” This time when his grin returned, it was a slow, wolfish thing. “At least this madman offers those things.”
Amric looked finally to Halthak, who flushed and gave a sheepish shrug. “Someone has to keep all you mad fools alive,” he said.
The warrior considered making another attempt to dissuade them, but as he looked around at each of their faces he read defiance and quiet determination, and he bit down upon the words before they could form. Who was he to impugn their courage, anyway? They had each made their decisions with full knowledge of what they faced. For their own reasons, each had chosen to accompany him to aid his missing friends and, with luck, all of the lands. He and Valkarr were well accustomed to the battlefield, and Bellimar had certainly seen his share of death, but the others were not so inured. All in all, he decided, he could think of no more valorous act.
He nodded his thanks to them and wheeled his bay gelding toward the city’s southern gate. The riders fell into line behind him, and they rode from the city under the gathering sky.
Twin pairs of eyes, pale and sharp as the hard frost before the first driving winter snowfall, watched from high atop the southern wall of Keldrin’s Landing. As Amric and company disappeared over the first distant rise where the winding thread of road split the rolling green sward, the Elvar assassin Nyar turned to his brother Nylien.
“They depart the city,” he remarked.
“Our lord predicted as much,” Nylien said.
“Our lord is wise, as ever.”
“The Nar’ath will no doubt ensure they do not return,” Nylien said in a sorrowful tone.
“But our lord prefers to take few chances,” Nyar pointed out.
The other brightened. “Just so, brother, just so.”
“There will be many Nar’ath on the move.”
“But we are shadows,” Nylien said with confidence.
“So we are, brother. We are indeed shadows.”
“I believe our lord will wish us to follow, and ensure they cannot affect his plans.”
“We should prepare for travel,” Nyar said with an eager nod.
“Ho there!” bellowed a voice from further down the wall-walk. A heavyset guard strode toward them, slightly favoring a bandaged left leg, and a crossbow dangled from one hand at his side. “What are you two doing there? Citizens are not allowed upon the wall-walk.”
The Elvaren blinked at each other and broke into slow smirks.
“It addresses us, brother. It demands to know our purpose.”
“So it does. It would be rude not to respond, despite our hurry.”
“I had the same thought, my brother.”
Pushing themselves lazily from the wall, they spread out and began to stroll toward the guard on either side of the walkway.
The guard slowed and faltered, his brow clouding as his gaze darted between them. “Wait, what are you doing?” he stammered. “You cannot be up here.”
The assassins continued to advance at a leisurely pace, vulpine smiles splitting their features. Their pale faces and shocks of white hair seemed to float disconnected above their dark, leather-clad forms. The guard raised his crossbow, bracing it with his other hand and leveling it at first one and then the other. The Elvaren took no apparent notice of the weapon. The man searched their expressions and blanched. He began to take shuffling steps backward.
“You cannot be up here,” he repeated in an overloud voice. “Do not come any closer, or I’ll raise the alarm!”
Nyar slowed to a halt and put a slender finger to his lips, tapping them in thought. “It raises a worthy point, brother.”
“How do you mean?” asked Nylien, stopping as well and turning to face him.
“It occurs that if our conversation proceeds with this one, the aftermath may serve to draw additional unwanted attention to the southern wall and gate, today and tonight. And our lord would certainly not wish this.”
“Ah,” sighed Nylien. “As ever, brother, your adherence to duty does you credit. Of course you are correct.”
“Regrettably, the pleasures of conversing with this one will have to wait until we return,” Nyar agreed with a sigh of his own.
“If it still remains within the city,” Nylien said, raising one delicate eyebrow.
“It is the price of pursuing larger game, and doing our lord’s will. We will not be so constrained, when he rises to power.”
“But until then…”
“Yes, until then.”
The assassins turned to the guard once more. The man stood facing them, bewildered, the point of the loaded crossbow bolt wavering between the two figures. His finger tightened upon the trigger as the pair regarded him with all the detached interest one might show an intrusive, uncommon insect. Then, in unison, they spun on their heels and began to walk the other way with identical sauntering gaits. The guard let out a long breath and watched them go, tracking their progress until they disappeared into the stairwell leaving the wall-walk. They did not once look back.
Amric kicked free of the saddle and slid to the ground. He knelt there, brushing his fingertips over the parched earth and then digging in to withdraw a fistful of sand. It poured from his hand and was caught by the breeze, swirling away like a gossamer veil. He squinted back the way they had come. A mere twenty yards away the soil was dark, rich and moist, giving rise to the lush green sward that undulated away behind them.
“What do you make of this?” he asked.
“Something is leeching the life from the very land here,” Bellimar responded at once, nudging his steed closer. “There has long been a desolate region at the southern foot of the Hoarfang mountain range, but it was isolated, ringed in by crags and fertile plains.”
“It is the same, the spreading wasteland my father heard about,” Thalya said with quiet conviction. “It must be.”
Bellimar’s expression was grave. “If this extends all the way to the mountains, then its expansion has been rapid indeed,” he said. “Too rapid.”
Amric nodded and stood, brushing the sand from his palms. He turned and sighted along the ragged line where the vegetation gave grudging way to the advancing desert. Along that line, the grasses browned and grew thin, and the scattered copses of trees withered into weak, skeletal things. The transition was far too abrupt to be natural.
That the land was dying was plain to see. The questions that had to be answered now were how, and why.
“Could this be another way the disruption of Essence in the region manifests itself?” Halthak asked.
“I do not know, but I doubt it,” Amric said with a slow shake of his head. “These symptoms do not match those of the forest, where life is maddened and twisted but not drained like this.”
“I must concur,” Bellimar said. “The magic in the region is rising out of control, strengthening magical effects and causing chaos through the agitation of all things that are linked to Essence. This would seem to represent the opposite. It does not match the pattern.”
Valkarr grunted, frowning down from the saddle at the barren ground beneath his mount’s hooves. “The earth dies,” he said. “Just as it did beneath the flesh of the black things we fought in the forest.”
Amric felt a chill, recalling how the flora had wilted and died wherever even a severed piece of the creatures came to rest for any length of time. It strained coincidence to believe that there was no connection between nearing the source of the foul creatures and encountering this widespread effect.
Syth was scanning the bleak horizon with a look of dismay upon his face. “Even if the flesh of these creatures is toxic, could they have done all this merely by walking around?” he asked in a dubious tone.
Bellimar shook his head. “I do not see how, unless there are unimaginably vast multitudes of them. To cause devastation at this level by tread alone would take more than seems possible, more than could be concealed. But we still do not know their source yet, and I think that might yield the answer.”
Thalya sat her restive mare with a drawn expression, her green eyes roving from Bellimar to the seemingly boundless wasteland ahead. Amric tried to guess at her thoughts, but her stony expression yielded no hints. He swung into the saddle of his bay gelding and wheeled it about to face the group.
“Either way, we must be getting close. We continue south.”
They rode on into the wasteland with the somber afternoon sky turning slowly above them. The terrain grew even more bleak, the remaining signs of plant and animal life becoming rarer with each passing hour. Stark outcroppings of sun-bleached rock knuckled their way through the sweeping dunes, and the ground around them seemed to peel back in aversion. The southern road became an ephemeral thing, a tentative strand of hard-packed earth winding through the parched land; it would come and go in glimpses, swept under by the wind-blown sands as often as not. Amric had begun to believe they would see no other creature in this desolate sea when they crested a ridge and caught the first distant signs of motion. At first he thought the shimmering waves of heat clinging to the ground were playing tricks upon his vision, but the more he stared, the more he realized what he was seeing. He brought the column of riders to a halt and pointed.
A group of a dozen or so dark figures was running over a faraway swell of sand, moving together with tireless purpose. As they watched, a second group of tiny, indistinct figures appeared over another hill, and then a third. The creatures were all headed north, toward them. Amric turned and led the way back behind the ridgeline. They left the remains of the highway and rode west for a time. As they threaded along the hills, the terrain offered occasional views of the progress of those they sought to avoid. The creatures did not appear to have noticed them over the yawning distance, as they continued on their respective paths to the north as if on a shared mission. Amric turned the group and headed south once again, deeper into the wasteland.
Over the next several hours, they were forced to change course many more times. Each time they reached a summit, they were greeted by the sight of more and larger packs of the black creatures skittering across the hills. It became an increasing challenge to avoid them, requiring the riders to weave back and forth in an ever more erratic pattern. On several occasions, the creatures passed close enough to the riders that Amric, lying flat upon the hill separating them, could pick out details of their ebon flesh and the tattered cloth wrappings dangling from their limbs. As with the ones they had faced before, these seemed to be modeled after various races, like animate statues cast of some lightless material in the mold of the peoples from far-flung lands. He saw the forms of humans and slender Elvaren, stout Duergen and heavyset beast-men, the bird-beaked men from some deep southern clime whose nation he could not recall, and even an occasional Traug. He saw countless others too far away to discern, but their shapes and sizes proclaimed their diversity. At one point he was convinced he saw the tail and lean, broad-shouldered build of a Sil’ath, but it was too far away to be certain and the figure was quickly lost to sight behind the hills.
Amric ground his teeth in frustration at the pace of their progress. It seemed for every mile they struck further south, they spent as much or more effort in backtracking and sidestepping to avoid detection. Sooner or later they would be unable to avoid a conflict, and if the creatures had any way to signal each other over even moderate distance, the riders would soon find themselves thoroughly overwhelmed. Even if they did manage to win free, the creatures would be alerted to their presence, which would only make it more difficult to traverse this harsh wasteland unmolested. Casting a scathing look at the darkening heavens, he began to search for a suitable place to camp and wait out the night.
There had been precious few candidate locations on the journey here. Little more was offered than the lee of a coved hill or a scraggly copse of trees here and there. He preferred something far less visible and exposed to attack, here in the midst of hostile territory. They could turn west and head out of the desert and toward the coastal road, the same road that had brought him and Valkarr to this region, but it was a good half day’s ride in that direction and would of course cost them the same amount of time on the morrow to return to this point. No, it had to be something close, and soon.
They veered to the southeast, avoiding two more groups of the black creatures running north with mile-eating strides. The ground became harder in vast, bare patches, as if the capricious winds had worn enough of the sand away to expose the ribcage of the land. The obscured sun began its preamble to setting, tinting with a rosy glow the whole of the sky to the southwest, where the cloud cover was most thin.
As they cautiously peered over another rise, Amric saw a huge, conical structure rising from the earth and forming a sharp silhouette against the pale sands in the distance. His skin prickled the instant his eyes fell upon it. It did not look man-made, and yet its shape was too symmetrical, too purposeful, to have been crafted by nature’s hand. His eyes narrowed, straining against the fading light and the blur of the miles that separated them from the edifice. Tiny shapes scurried up and down the sloping sides of the thing like a swarm of black ants.
Amric clenched his jaw. They had found the hive of the black creatures at last.
Valkarr gave a low hiss and pointed eastward. With an effort, Amric tore his gaze from the nest and followed the Sil’ath warrior’s gesture to see a huge tumble of rock jutting up from a rolling hill to the east. A narrow, chiseled path ascended to the top, and the ground fell away almost vertically on the other sides. Amric nodded his satisfaction; this would do very well. He took another sweeping look over the dunes, checking the movement and positions of the scattered packs of black creatures, and his eyes lingered again on the upraised nest. Then he swung his bay gelding back down the hill and around its base, wending toward the peak Valkarr had spotted.
It took the better part of an hour to reach it without exposing their profile along a ridgeline. Amric and Valkarr dismounted at the foot of the crag and, leaving the reins of their mounts with the others, began to climb the crumbling path up its side. The carved channel looked water-worn, which seemed incongruous with their desert surroundings, but Amric had to remind himself that this area had not always been so arid. The horses could be led up this path, he decided, but it would be a slow and noisy ascent. Anything lurking at the summit would be alerted by the clamor, and it would be best to ferret out such surprises beforehand.
The warriors worked their way up the path, silent as ghosts, until the soft rasp of metal on stone behind them caused both to glance back. Syth was following, one steel-sheathed hand braced against a squat boulder as he ascended. At their stern looks he flushed and hastily withdrew the offending gauntlet from the rock, but from the set of his jaw the man would not be turned back. Amric and Valkarr exchanged a look and continued up the path.
At the top of the escarpment, the warriors slipped over a raised lip and into a large crown of rock. They clung like shadows to the encircling wall, scanning their surroundings. Here, nestled within this giant bowl, was a marvel of vibrant greenery. A beard of ferns and thick bushes surrounded a strip of trees, and a carpet of fine grass led down to the jewel at the center of the crown, a clear, rippling pool. The waters curled and bubbled, fed from below by some brook or geyser that managed to force its way up through the heart of the crag. Amric shook his head in wonder. Life persevered, even amid such desolation. This explained the smoothing of the stone along the pathway, then. Rainfall and water pressure from below must couple to periodically flow over that lip, the lowest escape point, and over the centuries had carved a channel to the ground.
Amric dropped into a crouch, cocking his head to one side. There was no enemy in sight, but he knew with sudden certainty that they were not alone. One of his swords whispered free of its scabbard along his back, and he turned and melted into the bushes. Valkarr did the same in the other direction, and the warriors began gliding in a slow circuit of the place.
When Syth arrived at the summit, his mouth fell open at the sight that greeted him. He stepped forward onto the grass and took three quick strides toward the pool, grinning in delight.
“What heavenly place is this? I––” he began, and then he stiffened. The cold steel that appeared at his throat brought startling focus to several things in rapid succession. The first was that the scaly, muscular arm holding the weapon and the reptilian visage regarding him belonged to a Sil’ath, without a doubt, but it was not Valkarr. The second was that neither Valkarr nor Amric were anywhere to be seen. The last was that his senses had dulled considerably during his long months as an unwilling guest within Stronghold; he should never have allowed himself to be caught so blithely unaware.
Syth met the dispassionate eyes of his assailant and wondered if this Sil’ath could match Valkarr’s blinding speed. He knew himself to be swift as well, and with one quick twist he could bat that blade aside with a gauntleted hand––
“Do not try,” the Sil’ath said in a sibilant whisper. “I have no wish to take your head.”
“Tis an empty prize you would be claiming there,” called a nearby voice. Amric stepped from the undergrowth, and Valkarr rose like a wraith at his side. “And I must advise against making that strike, for fear of dulling your blade on his thick skull.”
Syth scowled at the grinning swordsman even as the blade at his throat fell away.
“Warmaster! Valkarr!” the Sil’ath exclaimed, striding forward to clasp forearms with Amric.
“Well met, Innikar,” Amric responded, clapping the newcomer on the shoulder as the fellow clasped forearms with Valkarr in turn. Another figure rose to its feet from a tall cluster of ferns a few yards away, and Syth jumped at its sudden proximity. It was another Sil’ath, more slender and wiry than Innikar or Valkarr, but no less formidable in appearance. The figure took a sinuous stride forward, and Syth realized with a start that it was a female of the species. Another round of the oddly formal greetings followed as she traded forearm grips with both Amric and Valkarr, and then she stepped back with a sly smile.
“You have both been away from home too long, if your senses have dulled so far as to permit a concealed potential enemy so near,” she said. “Valkarr, were you not the one who instructed me in the ways of stealth?”
“So I was,” Valkarr said with a grunt. He reached around and drew a small knife from his belt at the small of his back, reversed his grip on it with a flick of his wrist, and offered it to her hilt first. “Just remember that as long as I have been gone, Sariel, you have been gone longer still.”
Sariel burst into musical laughter and accepted the knife, returning it to an empty sheath at her hip. She ran an appraising look up and down Syth, who realized the swirling winds around him had increased with his tension. He took several slow, deliberate breaths, and the air calmed with him. Sariel quirked a delicate brow ridge at him, and he flushed.
“It warms my heart to see you both,” Amric said. “We lost your trail at Stronghold, and I feared the worst. Now I find myself hoping that my senses are indeed dulled, however, as I was able to detect only the two of you. Where are the others?”
Innikar slammed his swords home into the scabbards crossed upon his back. Syth noted that he was not as powerfully built as Valkarr, but he was a lean mass of corded muscle and moved with the same fluid ease. The Sil’ath warrior lifted his chin and met Amric’s gaze. His tail lashed behind him and then grew still with a spasm of effort, the only outward sign of his agitation.
“We have much to tell you, warmaster,” Innikar said in a bleak tone.
Amric nodded and clasped his shoulder again. “The two of you are well, and it is a start,” he said. “Syth, let the others know it is safe to bring the horses up here. This peak is well sheltered from below, with a defensible path. We will stay the night here. I can only hope that Halthak has kept the other two from killing each other in our absence.”
Syth nodded, and for once he had no retort. As he left, he rubbed at his throat where the caress of the blade’s edge still lingered. He found himself hurrying more than was necessary, and he glared down at his own feet as if in reproach. He sifted through his discomfort, seeking the cause. Was he angry that Innikar had surprised him so easily? No, that was little more than a pinprick to his rather durable ego, and was soon forgotten. Had the undeniable femininity of the Sil’ath woman roused surprising feelings in him? No. Well, yes, if he was being honest, but he found no shame in admitting it. He could appreciate beauty in another race, and Sariel was indeed beautiful in an exotic and somewhat frightening way. The huntress Thalya was more stunning by far, however, and perhaps a degree less likely to gut him for making an advance. At least he hoped she was less likely to respond that way.
Soft laughter echoed behind him. The warmth of the reunion was an almost tangible thing at his back, and he felt a hollow pang in his chest in response as he started down the path. He could lay claim to no such future reunion of his own, he knew. No one would have come for him in Stronghold; if chance had not led a group of strangers to him, he would still be there, either dead or wasting away in that dreadful cage. Why did it bother him all of a sudden that no one awaited him with warm smile and firm grasp, eager to touch his flesh and, in so doing, reaffirm his well-being? It never had before. Trudging across the world and into the teeth of danger for the sake of lost friends was a grand gesture, if a bit dramatic for his tastes. And there was the rub, was it not? To be worthy of such gestures, one had to be willing to commit them on behalf of another. The air spun around him and tugged a persistent lock of hair across his eyes. Annoyed, he batted it away.
The rocky path curved and brought the trio below into sight. They turned away from the darkening wasteland to watch him as he descended. His gaze caught on the oval of Thalya’s upturned face, and at that instant his heel slipped on a smooth, water-worn patch of stone. He bit back an oath as he caught himself. The green eyes of the huntress, still upon him, sparkled with amusement as a small smile played across her lips. His breath caught, and that strange pang lanced through his chest again. He shook himself and dragged his attention downward to focus upon his footing as he navigated the last portion of the path.
Thalya sat upon a flat-topped rock and dangled her bare feet in the cold water. Having seen the pool in the day’s fading light, she knew it was shallow and held no mysteries, but it was easy to imagine different now as she stared into the black, rippling surface made depthless by the night. She looked up, searching again for the glimmer of stars across the roiling tapestry above her, but there were none to be found. The only light came from the insistent silver glow of the moon, pressed tight against the back of the clouds.
Her eyes fell to the men, still gathered around a small fire nestled back against the trees on the far side of the pool. Their conversation was too low to overhear at this distance, but even from here she could read the determination in every gesture made by the Sil’ath warriors. She watched Amric in particular, asking questions and inhaling the answers. The burning intensity in his features both drew and repelled her. Her father had developed such unrelenting focus later in his life, when he became convinced that the fate of the world rested upon his actions, and the change had confused and frightened her as a child. In later years, it had merely saddened her. So she studied Amric with an involuntary tightening of her skin, waiting for the signs she should have seen earlier in Drothis.
Syth glanced over at her many times, as he had been doing since she left the campfire in silence to sit here, alone by the water. She smiled and pretended not to see. Now and again she felt the weight of Bellimar’s eyes upon her, but each time she snapped up to meet that unholy gaze with her own promise and hatred, she found him instead with head turned, seemingly engrossed by the conversation at hand, and the sensation faded. She glared a few extra seconds at him each time, but somehow she doubted he found her stare quite as unnerving. Irritated, she reached up in response to the nagging itch of the scabs and welts upon her face and then caught herself. She let her hand drop once more; they would heal in good time, and she would only make it worse and risk infection by scratching at the wounds.
At the fire, Halthak pushed himself to his feet and stretched. She knew in an instant that it was more than the nonchalant gesture he would have it seem. Sure enough, his craggy countenance lifted to send a tentative smile in her direction. He started toward her, picking his way over the rocks at the edge of the pool. When he reached her, he shifted from one foot to the other, his gnarled hand kneading upon the equally gnarled ironwood staff he always bore with him.
“May I join you?” he asked.
“Well, this rock is mine,” she responded. “But I am still saving to purchase the others.”
He blinked at her, and she sighed. She tried again, this time simply giving an encouraging smile and gesturing for him to take a seat. He settled cross-legged next to her, cradling one end of the staff in the crook of his arm while he swirled the tapered end in the water. He did not say anything, seeming content to sit in silence.
She cleared her throat. “So I see you grew bored of the strategy talk as well.”
“They lost me early on,” he admitted. “I really only wanted to hear what became of the other Sil’ath. They were all wounded in their escape from Stronghold, and one of them, Varek, succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter. They were set upon by those black creatures, and only these two were able to fight their way free. Prakseth and Garlien were taken to that strange hive we saw in the distance, and Innikar and Sariel have been recuperating and trying to get close enough to the hive to rescue them.”
“I know,” Thalya said. “I was at the campfire as the tale was recounted.” She winced at the unintended impatience in her tone.
“Oh,” the Half-Ork mumbled. “Of course you were. I am sorry.”
“No,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “The need for apology is mine. I am not very good with people. I am afraid it was not among my father’s priorities when he trained me to hunt Bellimar.”
He responded with a pinched smile, his tusks protruding at the corners of his broad mouth. “It is not a skill of mine, either. Too many see my features and reach conclusions that cannot be undone by mere words.”
“You are certainly unlike any other Ork that I have seen,” she remarked.
“I am not an Ork,” he said with quiet heat. Then he flashed her a sheepish look. “But I know I owe more of my appearance to that part of my lineage than to my human side, even if I have no taste for war.”
“If you have no taste for war, I’d say that makes you uncommon as either Ork or human, Halthak. From my experience, civilization is a thin veneer at best for either race.”
Halthak chuckled, drawing the tip of his staff through the damp sand at the water’s edge. “Perhaps you are right. Still, I would prefer to be normal like the rest of you, and not caught between two unwelcome halves.”
Thalya burst out laughing and clapped a hand over her own mouth to stifle the sound, lest she draw unwanted attention to their perch from the denizens of the desert below. The baffled look in the Half-Ork’s eyes only made her shake with laughter all the harder.
“Which of us normal folk would you be like, Halthak?” she said when she could safely speak again. “Syth, who is half human like yourself and yet also has a volatile pure elemental half to his nature? Perhaps Amric, born human but a Sil’ath in all but flesh? Would you trade fates with Bellimar the Damned, caught between the worlds of life and death? Even I, raised among my kind, was held apart by circumstance. Those two Sil’ath warriors over there are probably the most normal among us, and they follow a human warmaster despite their kind’s fabled aversion to other races. None of us truly belong, for one reason or another. We are all misfits. And yet here we are, striving for what is in each of our hearts. What’s more, if Amric is to be believed, this group of misfits might well save this undeserving world.”
Halthak stared at her with wide eyes, and snapped his mouth shut after a moment.
“I think you are better with people than you are aware, Thalya,” he said in a soft voice. He held out one knobby hand. “May I?”
She cocked her head at him, uncertain what he meant. In truth, her own words had shaken her a bit; the revelation still resonated in her mind, plucking at deep-rooted threads of pain within her like a hand brushing at the strings of some dusty instrument and marveling to find it still in perfect tune. Distracted, she slipped her hand into his, feeling the creases and calluses of his pebbled flesh. The suffusion of warmth that followed stole her breath in a gasp.
The Half-Ork’s earnest expression cracked and darkened before her astonished eyes. His thick lip split in several places, and various welts and bruises sprang into existence on his whiskered face. With a start, she recognized them as mirrors to her own injuries. Even as the realization dawned, the marks shrunk and vanished from his features, and in seconds they were gone as if they had never been. Thalya felt the heat subside in her own face, and her free hand rose of its own volition to explore the now unbroken skin of her face. The wounds were gone, the sting and itch no more than a memory. The blooming warmth of Halthak’s magic withdrew, and he released her hand with a gentle squeeze. Rising to his feet, he walked back to the others, leaving her sitting there with her hand on her cheek.
Syth stood before Halthak reached the guttering campfire, and he passed the healer with a speculative look. He hopped lightly from rock to rock, and then spun to a seat beside her in a cool wash of air. He wore a boyish grin as he turned to her, seemingly prepared to share some latest bit of mischief, when suddenly he froze.
“What are you gawking at?” she demanded, raising an eyebrow at him.
He closed his mouth with a snap. “Your face––the wounds––” he breathed.
She gave a snort. “You can add poet after horse trader on your list of unlikely professions.”
Even in the faint silver light she could see the color rise to his cheeks, but it was quickly masked over by a rogue’s grin. “It took me by surprise, is all,” he said. “I meant to say that you look lovely this evening.”
“How goes the reunion over there?” she asked in a flat tone. He took the hint to change the subject and followed her gaze toward the campfire.
“I believe they have discussed every last detail of the terrain for a hundred miles in any direction. There is no angle of approach that will allow us near the hive unseen, however, especially with the marked increase in activity around it in recent days. They are all looking to Amric to concoct some magic scheme––” his face wrinkled as he seemed to regret his own choice of words “––that will enable a ragtag band of blades to snatch their friends from under the noses of an army of undying creatures. It seems he has a history of pulling off strategic miracles.”
“He does seem a man for miracles at times,” Thalya mused, studying the warmaster and the Sil’ath warriors gathered around him, hanging on his every word and gesture. “There is something about him that inspires confidence. I only hope it is justified, if we are to leave this wasteland alive.”
When she received no response, she turned her head to find Syth’s eyes upon her in the dark, his expression carefully neutral. A brittle smile spread across her features.
“Whatever is the matter, Syth?” she asked in a sweet and dangerous tone. “Does it bother you that I might admire the swordsman?”
“No, of course––”
“Will you duel for my affections, then?” she pressed, anger seeping into her voice. “Or did I miss the part where you already staked your claim to me? I hope you struck a better trade than when you bought your horse earlier.”
He looked bewildered now, taken aback at her hostility. “No, that’s not it at all. I––”
She leaned in toward him. “Are we to rut like animals here and now?” she breathed, putting a new kind of heat into her words. “Or wait until the others are asleep?”
“You don’t understand,” he said, raising his hands before him to fend her off. “I did not mean––I only wanted––” His shoulders slumped and he shook his head as the ever-present wind whirled about him in fitful gusts. “I am afraid I am not very good with people.”
She stiffened as the words stung her. Her own words to Halthak, spoken mere minutes ago, and she had proven their veracity again.
“Since we rescued you, I have been seeking every opportunity to be near you,” he said softly. “Every time I resolve not to make a fool of myself before you, and every time I prove myself a liar.”
She wanted to mouth a scathing reply, to insist that he did not know her, could not know her, that this pathetic act of devotion did not suit him and was but a poor mask for his baser intentions. Anything to make him leave. But the words lodged in her throat, and in the end she forced her eyes back to the fire reflected in the ripples of the pond. Syth sat a few feet away, not looking at her, seeming uncertain whether to leave or try again to explain.
She cleared her throat at last. “They seem very happy to be together again,” she said, nodding toward Amric and the Sil’ath warriors. Between periods of intense discussion across the campfire, there were warm smiles and low laughter, and on occasion one figure would give another a playful shove in response to some jest.
“There is sorrow for the deceased, and worry for those still lost, as well as tension for the morrow,” Syth said, appearing grateful for the change of subject. “But yes, there is an abiding joy as well. They are family, and in all honesty, it made me feel uncomfortable to be over there, an outsider among them. It gave me the opportunity to….” He trailed off and looked away.
“To come over here and instead be attacked by a stranger?” she prompted with a wry smile. “It was unfair of me, Syth, I am sorry. But you do not know me, and I have been desired solely for my appearance before.”
His face swung back toward her in the silvery light. “Then tell me of yourself. And let me tell you of myself. I have a sense that you grow tired of being an outsider as well.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I keep expecting the brash fellow who has been trying to impress me these past few days to make a sudden return.”
“Oh, he is still in here, clamoring to slip his bonds,” he assured her with a sly wink. “Or perhaps he is scouring the night for some jeweled bauble he is hoping to trade for your affections. We had best talk quickly, before he returns.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I think you are better with people than you are aware, Syth.”
“That is a kind thing to say,” he remarked, drawing his knees up and wrapping his arms around them.
She smiled. “A friend told me that recently, when I needed to hear it.”