144: Wrath (9 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The road had run out halfway through the first day, and Polas had been left to guide by instinct. The open plains of Nas Sonath had changed little since his time. Cool, salty winds still blew in from the north, and soft yellow grass brushed his boots. They rested the first night in a low basin and broke camp before dawn the next morning. They lunched on horseback, despite Flint’s protestations, and continued their trek until late in the evening.

Polas stopped the group and allowed a short rest so that the others could eat their dinners. He took a wedge of traveler’s mune, popped it into his mouth, and went for a walk. He had begun seeing signs of his quarry a few hours earlier and wanted to confirm his suspicions. A short distance from the group, he found a series of small circular mounds dug in the ground in an area of flat, grassless land. Each was about a foot in diameter and looked as though they had been recently filled. He knelt and ran his hand through the loose soil. Someone had camped here recently, and he had a good suspicion as to whom. He only needed to find an adequate site to put down for the night; somewhere obvious.

For good measure, he led the group a few kallows further to a clear spring before he called them to a stop. They led their horses to the edge of the water as night fell on the plain. A few moren lizards slaked their thirst a short distance up the small creek behind a series of low hills. Somewhere behind them, a burrowl hooted from deep inside its den. The evening’s first stars flickered in the darkening sky, and the day’s beauty gave way to the night’s peace and stillness.

"This will be far enough," Polas said.

Kiff slowed his board, "You do realize we’re still about five thousand kallows from Waysmale, right?"

"Master Kas Dorian," Xandra said, "please excuse my ignorance, but why are we here?"

"Yours is not the only race to hold onto prophecies. I'm hoping to meet someone here."

Polas dismounted as a great shadow fell upon the plain. It took his eyes a moment to recognize the silhouette that blocked out the starlight, but there was no mistaking the shape of a trade ship flying high above them.

"Hells take me," Polas said.

The others followed his gaze up into the heavens and marveled along with him.

"It's not every day you see an airship," Kiff said. "Especially in Maduria."

"I thought they were illegal," Xandra said.

"Nothing's illegal if you have enough money," Kiff said. "Besides, who's gonna go catch them?"

"I'm just surprised anyone still tries it after the Crone crashed in Berco," Flint said. "It is considerably dangerous to sail those ships in uncharted sky lanes. Were they to fly over a pocket of undiscovered black iron, there would be little chance of survival for anyone on board."

"Ships fly?" Polas asked.

"Yes," Flint replied.

"In the air?"

"You've missed out on a lot, Butcher," Kiff said.

"I guess I have." Polas watched until the ship became an indistinguishable black dot in the distant sky. By the time it was gone, the others had already begun setting up the campsite, so Polas turned to gather kindling for a fire.

Xandra dug through one of Flint’s bags and revealed an orange orb the size of a wheat loaf. She cleared a small area of dirt and set the strange stone in the middle. With a wave of her hand, the stone glowed gently and exuded warmth that would keep them all comfortable throughout the night.

Polas shrugged and tossed his gathered sticks to the side. He removed his boots, selected a place at the edge of the stone’s glow to sit, and watched the suns as they hid themselves away beyond the horizon.

Flint struggled to set up a small tent, finally giving up and allowing Xandra to help him. She bowed to her teacher and Polas before entering the tent and preparing for sleep.

Kiff returned from relieving himself upstream a short time later. He looked over to Polas and nodded toward the east. The general shook his head, and Kiff shrugged as he stepped over the already sleeping Flint on his way to Xandra’s tent.

"Knock, knock," he said as he lifted the tent’s flap.

Inside, Xandra sat with legs crossed on a fur blanket, wearing only a light gown. She jerked the blanket up to her shoulders and scooted to the back edge of the small tent.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Save your spells," Kiff said. "I just wanted to say goodnight."

"Well," Xandra said, "goodnight."

Kiff ran his gloved fingers over the plush, white fur of Xandra’s blanket.

Her eyes flitted between Kiff, the tent’s opening, and the quarterstaff by her bed, and he knew that he needed to come up with worthwhile conversation quickly or find himself back outside on his rear.

"Is this Ampen fur?" Kiff asked.

"What? No! Why would anyone skin an Ampen?"

Kiff shrugged. "I guess because they’re soft?"

"That’s horrible."

"Yeah, really?" Kiff forced an uncomfortable laugh. "Who would do that?"

Xandra studied the Undlander behind the safety of her blanket. In Faldred culture, girls were not afforded the same type of education as the boys, so she, as a student of Flint the White-Handed, had grown up surrounded by only Faldred young men while the Faldred girls learned directly from their mothers. The boys were overly practical and very easy to read. Kiff was not. While she already knew she hated the annoying Undlander, a small part of her longed to see what he looked like beneath his mask.

"So," Kiff said, finally, "you think it will work?"

Xandra eyed him warily. "What are you talking about?"

"This whole ‘quest to restore Hope to Traesparin’ thing," he replied. "You think it will work?"

"Of course."

"Oh," Kiff said. He looked down at his hands for a moment before turning to leave. "It must be nice to be fearless."

Kiff left Xandra staring at the tent walls, thinking about how big her destiny really was.

Her tent felt very small that night, and the stars above it seemed far beyond her reach. As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered if maybe, just possibly, there was a chance that they might not win.

On a low hill less than a kallow away from the camp, five beings lay in the grass. They watched as the Undlander left the young girl’s tent and walked over toward the brook.

A sixth and seventh hunter stood holding their horses at the far side of the knoll. They were Dorokti of the Ginakti clan. This was their land, and no one crossed it freely.

Their leader, a raven-furred panther Dorokti called Kertyah, motioned the group back. His eyes glowed green in the darkness. He carried a longbow across his back and a curved dagger on his hip. His limbs were lithe, his muscles like thick cords, and he bore a scar that ran from his neck up to what had once been his ear.

The grass beneath them hardly rustled as they crept down the far side of the hill. Kertyah was the last to follow. After joining the others, he made several quick gestures with his hands. He made sure everyone knew the number of the prey, the amount of blades they carried, and that his team would attack before dawn.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Polas sat writing names in the dirt. As he wrote each name, he would stare at the jagged lines and smooth circles of the High Peltin language before rubbing it away with his foot.

Kiff stood looking up at the stars, his dark fatigues making him a shadow against the night sky. The starlight danced across his goggles as he ran his right hand through his silver-blue hair. "So, I take it you’re not worried about the riders on the other side of that hill? Just asking since they’ve been following us for a few hours now, and you haven’t said hold or hey."

"I'm waiting for some old friends to find us," Polas replied.

"You have old friends that are still around?"

"It's possible."

Kiff returned to the warmth of the glowstone and sat next to his pack. "Hope they are your friends then, 'cause they're pretty good. Wouldn't have known they were there at all if it weren't for the horses."

"Just go to bed, Kiff."

Polas laid down, resting his head on a small rock.

"Your bandages are looking a little stale, Mr. Butcher," Kiff said. "Maybe you should consider switching them out. Hate for you to get killed by infection before you have a chance to get killed by a god again."

Kiff was right. Polas had only removed the dressings a few times to eat and drink and had not changed them out in days. Even without a complete nose, he could tell that they were starting to reek.

Polas carefully unwrapped the bandages on his face, wincing as scabrous flesh stuck to stiff cloth. He tested the limits of his jaw. It cracked and popped as he opened and closed his mouth several times. Pus leaked out of his cheek and ran down his scruffy chin.

"That really is foul," Kiff said.

Polas got up and walked over to his horse to look for more cloth strips. The night air was cold, and it whistled through the hole in his cheek.

The Undlander dug through his own pack. By the time Polas returned to his bed with more wrappings, Kiff had found what he was looking for: a swatch of fabric and a bit of twine. He set to work on the objects, holding the cloth in his stiff left hand and threading the twine through and around with his right.

Polas watched him, interested to see what could be fashioned with the rudimentary rags.

A short time later Kiff handed the bit of material to Polas. "There you go," he said. "Try that out. It’ll breathe better than the dressings, and it will make you look less like a dead Coranthen prince."

Polas slipped the new mask over the lower half of his face. It hugged his chin gently, and covered his cheek and nose. The fabric was sewn in such a way that it left his right cheek free yet kept the mask secured to his face.

"Thanks," Polas said. He sat once more, picked up his discarded stick, and began tracing the rising sun symbol of the Sigil. "Why are you here, Kiff?"

Kiff shrugged. "It's this or home."

"That’s not a real reason."

"It is if you’re an Undlander. I’ve still got some time before they make me go back, with or without a name. Besides, Matthew knows more than just about anybody about everything. So if he thinks this will be a good adventure, then I'd be a fool not to take it."

"I hate to tell you," Polas said, "but this isn’t really an adventure. And we’ll be lucky if even one of us walks away at its end."

Kiff picked up a small stone and threw it toward the brook. "Oh well. Still preferable to wasting away in a bar winning easy bets off
jugor
hagspawn."

"You should try to get some sleep. We’re gonna need it."

Kiff shrugged and scratched at his own mask. "Anything for the Iron Butcher."

~ 1000 years ago ~

"Calec, hand me that shoe, will you?" Polas said, reaching a hand behind him.

The family horse was tied to his stall’s door, and Polas kneeled beside it with a hammer in hand and a few short, metal pins held loosely in his lips. The musty scent of dried seed and manure swirled with the warm morning air. A brave mouse scuttled across an overhead beam, searching for a new hiding place from the coming day. The barn door shuddered at a rush of wind, and a baling hook rattled against chains and bear traps on the far wall.

Leyryl stomped around behind her father in a pair of his old boots that were much too large, but put a skip and a bounce in each step she took. She kept busy sweeping up loose bits of straw and tracked dirt, whistling all the while.

Near a stack of baled hay, Calec sat on an overturned, wooden bucket. He flicked idly at a traveling line of ants and kept careful watch on the open barn door. His wispy hair was long enough that he constantly needed to brush it off his forehead and out of his eyes.

"Calec," Polas said.

"I’ll get it, Daddy," Leyryl said. She leaned her broom against a wall and took a brand new horseshoe off a long, rusty nail. She spun it twice before handing it to her father.

Polas took it and hammered it into place. After checking the hoof for splits or breaks, he gently lowered Kurth’s leg. With a grunt, he straightened his shoulders and patted his horse on the back.

"What’s wrong, Calec?" Polas asked, turning toward the boy as he untied the horse from the stall. He closed the door and knocked a bit of mud from his boots.

"I want to go with you."

"Son, I’m doing this so you never have to. Nobody wants to go to war. It’s lots of marching and dry old food, and it’s days and weeks of planning for one little strike that might push the enemy back a few fields."

Calec pulled his bright blue eyes from the barn door and looked back down at the trail of ants. "Then don’t go. If you don’t want to go, then don’t go."

"It’s not as simple as that," Polas said.

Leyryl grabbed the broom and twirled around it as though it were her partner at a magnificent ball. "He’s just sad ‘cause he thinks you’re leaving forever. He doesn’t like when Uncle Narci and Uncle Ranar come and take you away ‘cause he’s afraid he won’t see you again."

Polas gave his daughter a meager smile, but he was shaken by her words. He knelt down next to his son and ruffled the boy’s hair.

"Is that true, son?"

Calec looked up at him for only a moment before returning his gaze to the door.

Polas pulled a bale of hay down from the stack and sat on hit. He motioned Leyryl over and pulled Calec onto his knee. Leyryl clopped over and hugged him around the neck as she sat beside him.

"Kids, I know you don’t want me to leave. I know it doesn’t make sense because things seem so nice out here on our farm." Polas hesitated and tried to get Calec to look at him. "But things aren’t nice all over. In fact, most places it’s pretty bad. And there are a lot of bad people out there."

"And Daddy has to go so that those bad people don’t ever come here," Leyryl said with her hands firmly on her hips.

Polas laughed and looked again at his son, but Calec’s eyes studied the ground.

"Calec, I’m not leaving forever. I’ll come home again before you know it."

Leyryl stood and spun on the heels of her oversized boots. "And when Daddy comes home this time, it will be to stay. Because the biggest bad guy of them all will be gone. Then he won’t ever have to leave again."

"How’d you get to be so smart, Leyryl?" Polas asked.

"Mommy says I get it from her."