“No one is safe here,” Cat answered. “Can’t you feel it? There’s a heaviness to the air. Like the stench of the dead, only something…more. It makes my hair stand on end.”
Niven had to agree. Hatred, pain, and fear. The Bazira triumvirate. This place is poisoned with all three.
Ori moved to sand beside Cat and murmured, “Luxari.” A small globe of light materialized in her hand. Cat knelt beside one of the dead men.
“He wears the Bazira cloth.” She turned over his palm that was gray with cold. “Aye, more proof.”
Niven knelt with Ilior over another corpse. The man’s arm had been severed and he also wore the red and black.
“A Zak’reth blade did this.” Ilior nudged the man’s arm that ended above his elbow. “Look at the burnt flesh. Only Zak’reth blades burn as they cut.” He stood up and scanned the area, his sword in his hand.
Cat, with Ori as her lantern, inspected a few more bodies. “There are no Zak’reth warships in the water, and there are no Zak’reth dead here.”
“Where did they go?” Niven asked.
“Inland?” Cat wiped orange-tinted rainwater from her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “And just because they slew the Bazira doesn’t make them our chums. They kill for the sport of it. We’ll have to be on the watch for those bloody bastards now too.”
Niven pulled the collar of a coat Marcus had given him around his neck while Ilior sniffed the air. For a few moments, the rain pattering on gritty sand was the only sound.
“I can’t scent the Zak’reth on the wind,” Ilior said. “They’re gone. Or maybe the rain washed their stench away. But Selena…She went into the forest.” He gestured with his sword at the line of birch trees that stood like slender white sentries along the beach’s northeastern edge.
The trees are like ghosts, Niven thought and wondered if Selena was a haunted by this place as he. She must be. This is where it all began for her.
“Hold up,” Cat ordered Ilior. “Let’s not traipse into the woods without a plan.” She bent and picked up a curved sword that had belonged to a Bazira adherent and thrust it at Niven.
He bobbled and nearly dropped it. “No, no. I keep trying but…I can’t. I’m only a healer.”
“Not tonight,” Cat said. “Ori, what of Bacchus? Do you have any idea where he might be?”
“Accora spoke of a rough-hewn temple with much of it dug beneath the earth,” Ori said. “Like a rat’s warren. She said the above-ground structure served mostly as an altar or place of worship. The darkpool will be there, I’m certain. As to where this temple lies, I can only guess somewhere in the interior. Isle Calinda is very small. I have no doubt we will find it.”’
“I can find it,” Ilior said. He sniffed the air again. “Selena is very close and we waste time.”
Cat met Niven’s eyes. “Very well, we’ll follow you, Ilior. Most likely to our deaths but maybe we’ll get lucky and find the Zak’reth have already slaughtered the Bazira.”
Niven didn’t hold much hope that was true. Ilior trudged ahead, and through the rain and darkness Niven could see the place where his other wing had been, now a scarred tangle of exposed bone.
It’s their war all over again, his and Selena’s, Niven thought. He peered up at the sky to where the moon was a slit in the sky, spilling silver light. A Bazira crescent but waxing. There is hope. Isn’t there?
The quartet marched in silence through the birch forest. Rain patter on the leaves and Ilior’s heavy tread were the only sounds. No one spoke. Niven tightened his grip on his new sword for the hundredth time. The rain made his palms slick—or that’s what he told himself.
Be brave. For Selena’s sake and your own, if you wish to get off this island.
Ilior held up a hand and motioned for everyone to get down behind a tangle of fallen trees. They did so in silence, and gathered around the Vai’Ensai. He pointed at a dead campfire and then another some spans beyond. Niven could smell the remnants of the charred wood and roast meat.
“This camp was cleared out quickly.” Cat pitched her voice under the rain. “Don’t see any sign of battle. Maybe they got wind that Zak’reth were coming.”
“There are no Zak’reth here,” Ilior said.
Cat looked dubious. “Better to be cautious—”
“They are gone.” Ilior’s reptilian face was craggy with shadows and dripped with rain. “I do not forget their smell. Like burnt leather. It’s a smell that filled my nose as they surrounded me and took my wing. I will never forget it. They were here but now they’re gone and all that matters is that we find Selena.”
They followed Ilior into the camp with weapons at hand and their eyes on the shadows. Ori did not weave light to see by but Niven knew she was ready with the sacred word on her lips. They passed by dozens of campfires. Some still smoked and hissed as rain doused the embers. Booted footprints churned the soil and remnants of dozens of dinners were strewn about.
“Wait. I—”
Ilior had no chance to finish his words as the shadows around them shivered and the clearing was suddenly beset with Bazira. At least fifty men in black and red came at them with curved blades and missiles of ice. They descended on Ilior who made a large target and on Ori, who answered their Baziran ice with Aluren light.
Niven did the only thing he knew to do. He grabbed at Cat who was nearest him and dragged her to the ground behind a stand of birch trees. She gave a small shriek that he stifled with his hand, and then dragged her by the collar away from the camp. Panic lent him strength and his blood thundered between his ears as he expected to feel a blade slip between his shoulders at any moment. Cat twisted out of his grasp and crawled and then ran with him.
“Oi, there!” came a call from behind, and Niven whimpered to hear the sounds of pursuit.
They ran for half a league at least, and the Bazira gave chase until one sent a bolt of ice at Cat and she went down with a cry. She clutched her leg and Niven bent to haul her up when their pursuers found them. Three Bazira, each with curved blades, ringed them.
Only three, Niven thought and would have laughed if he weren’t so frightened. May as well be a hundred.
“Drop the blades,” said the adherent, slender in all black and with darting eyes. He jerked his chin at another of the two without taking his eyes off Niven and Cat. “We’ll hold them. Bring some more boys, eh? Can’t take any chances. Not anymore.”
One of the three nodded and turned back to the camp.