A Warrior's Path (The Castes and the OutCastes) (22 page)

“I was just saying…”

“I don’t care what you were saying,” Rukh said, cutting him off.

Farn’s attitude pissed him off.  It was selfish.  They were alive when so many others had given everything.  Their lives.  Their loves.  Their futures.  Who cared if the four of them were ghrinas or naajas or some other kind of freaks of nature?  They could still do what they were trained for.  They could protect Ashoka.  Nothing else mattered.  It was their Devesh damned duty, and he would be fragged and fried in the unholy hells before he quit on his city.

But
if Rukh didn’t stomp out Farn’s whining, and damn quick, his cousin would destroy them all by wiping out their unit cohesion.  Right now, the four of them were it.  They had no one else to rely on.  They had to be strong and tight with each other.  There was no room for whining or complaining about how life was unfair.  When had Devesh ever made life fair?  They were alive.  It was enough.  It had to be.

Rukh pulled Farn closer, getting straight into his grill and looking the taller man in the eyes, forcing him to meet his gaze.  “Unless you have something useful to say, shut up.  Because the truth is, I’m damn grateful to be alive.  We’re naaja
s.  We’re ghrinas or something even worse.  Who the frag cares?  We’re the only naajas who can bring warning to Ashoka.  We may be our people’s only hope, and if the price to pay is being some kind of unnatural horror, so be it.  We’re Kummas.  We pay any price.”

Farn looked chastened, and he averted his eyes, unable to meet Rukh’s scrutiny.

Good.

Rukh released him.

“I’m ready,” Brand said, interrupting their argument.

Rukh sighed and stepped away from Farn.  “Then let’s lay our friends to rest.  We can talk about the rest of this
bilgewater on the way back.”

“Let’s do it,” Keemo said.

Farn also nodded his readiness and he shuddered as some of the fear leached out of his eyes.  “I’m ready.”

“As soon as we
get started, get the Blend up,” Rukh directed to Brand.  He looked to his cousins.  “On three.”

As soon as the bodies were aflame, Rukh nodded to Brand who instantly threw a Blend over the corpses.

Rukh wished he didn’t have a sudden sense and awareness of the Blend.  He could even tell how Brand had formed it.  It was delicate work, conducting
Jivatma
like that, but with practice, Rukh knew he might be able to cast one himself.

Just lovely.

Despite his earlier words to Farn, Rukh wasn’t comfortable with what had happened to them.  He was no less disgusted by the entire situation than his cousin.  It was horrible, like being violated.  He’d been forced to accept a Talent he had never sought or desired.  As a result, he no longer knew who he was or even what he was.  He wasn’t a Kumma.  At least not as most would define the warrior Caste.  Not anymore.  This new person was Tainted, a naaja, and Rukh hated him.  All night long, Rukh had tried to convince himself that whatever had happened, it would just turn out to be a trick played on his tired mind, like an illusion or something.  It had been a slim reed of hope, and now it was burned away and gone.

B
ut Rukh couldn’t dwell on his loss, not now when he knew the hard work that they had to do.  “Let’s go,” he said a few minutes later.

“Ashoka?” Keemo asked.

“Yes.”

“There’s a Blend under that pile of rocks,” Brand said, pointing to a large mound of small boulders and stones.  “I wasn’t able to sense it with all the death here until just now.”

“He’s right,” Farn agreed, immediately realizing what he had said and grimacing in disgust.

“We’ve got to get them out,” Rukh said, suddenly filled with hope.  He prayed more earnestly than he’d ever prayed before. 
Just a small blessing today.  Devesh, please…give us a chance.

“Could it be
the Sil Lor Kum?” Keemo asked as they worked.

Farn rolled his eyes.  “And why in the unholy hells would they come back here and bury themselves under a pile or rocks
?  Pretty stupid thing to do if they wanted to survive yesterday’s massacre.”

Keemo reddened with embarrassment.  “I was just saying…w
e don’t know who those people are.”

“
They’re our brothers,” Rukh said.  “Let’s get them out.”

They worked quickly and soon had a Kumma, a Rahail, and a Muran free of their encasement under stone.  The three men had fought together, and when the caravan had been over-run, the Kumma, Jorn Streedout of House Priyatel, had blasted apart a section of the rock
face with a Fireball, effectively burying the three of them.  As the rocks had fallen, he had hastily thrown up a protective Shield, while Blok Dam, the Rahail, and Simil Triosole, the Muran, had hidden them with a Blend.  They hadn’t slept a wink the entire night.  If Jorn had let slip his Shield, the rubble would have crushed them, and if the Blend had dissolved, the Chimeras would have promptly known of their presence.

It took the rest of the morning as well as most of their water and scavenged food for the three men to recover.

“Any others?” Blok asked, his head drooping wearily.

Brand shook his head.  “You’re the only ones we’ve found so far.”

“Suwraith’s spit,” Simil said, looking weary and sick.

“He was heading back to his home city.  Nestle,” Jorn said.  “He and his brother.”

“On Trial, all men are brothers,” Rukh said automatically.  A moment later, he swore softly under his breath.  In most instances, the phrase was trite to the point of losing all meaning, but now, it tasted like ash on his tongue.  For the first time, Rukh truly understood what the words meant.  But it was an understanding he wished he’d never gained.  Too much death had been the tuition for his education.

“
Damn Chims,” Brand muttered.

“Devesh damn them all,” Keemo agreed.

“What do you intend to do?” Jorn asked.

“We’re heading back to Ashoka to warn the city,
” Keemo said.

As t
he others talked amongst themselves, Rukh remained quiet.  A nugget of a plan – still in its formative stage – had settled in his mind, and he needed time to think it through.  Eventually it came to him.  “We’re not all going back to Ashoka,” Rukh said, interrupting their conversation.

“What do you mean?  You aren’t coming with us?” Blok asked.

“Not yet,” Rukh said.  “You three will go back and warn the city.  The four of us…” he indicated Brand, Keemo, and Farn, “…are going to track the Chimeras.  We’ll follow them to their home.”

“Are you sure about this?” Brand asked.  “Wouldn’t it be safer to go back to Ashoka?”

Rukh turned to him.  “Those Chims are the key,” he said.  “If we can locate their staging area, we can take the fight to them.”  His jaw firmed and a look of implacable hatred stole across his face.  “And when we find them, I mean to help lead the Army of Ashoka straight to their houses and burn them all to ashes.”

“Now that’s a plan,” Keemo said in agreement.

*****

T
hey followed hard on the Chimeras’ path, journeying as fast as they could.  Their quarry was nearly a full Shatter of filthy Chimeras, and the Ashokans should have been able to close the distance much more quickly than they did.  Their biggest obstacle was the need to hunt for food every night.  It slowed them down, and it didn’t help that Suwraith’s creatures were also moving swiftly.  The Chims had cut straight out of the foothills of the Privation Mountains and onto the Hunters Flats, picking up speed on the savannah.

During th
e hunt for the Chimeras, Rukh and the others didn’t speak much of the caravan.  It was too soon, and the hurt was too close.  Better to focus on the task at hand and not dwell on the past or what was lost.

So the days went
, but even as they chased the Chimeras, Rukh insisted all of them practice their new Talents.  He made the other Kummas learn to Blend.  It was an exercise that felt wrong on a bone-deep level, and it left Keemo and Farn – and Rukh – feeling disgusted with themselves.  All three of them hated it, but Rukh wouldn’t let up.  As far as he was concerned, Blending might be the difference between life and death.  Dying was easy, but duty demanded they live.  All of them took lessons from Brand an hour every morning before they broke camp and an hour before they settled in for the night.  They weren’t skilled and probably never would be, at least compared to Rahails and Murans, but they learned enough.  They could hide themselves if the need ever arose and had even managed a shaky Link of their Blends so that at a distance, they could still see one another.

And, of course, Brand took instruction from the Kummas on
his
new Talents.  A Fireball was the first skill he learned.

Several weeks into the hunt, they caught sight of
cook fires.  It was the Chimeras who’d annihilated the caravan.  Rukh shared a smile of anticipation with others, one of their few moments of pleasure since the caravan’s destruction.

Rukh
signaled the others, and they pulled aside to make camp several miles away in a small thicket of trees.

Brand went off to scout – being the best at Blending, his role was obvious – while the others ate a cold meal of wild carrots and roasted meat.  They knew better than to bother with a fire this close to the Chimera encampment.

“Let’s hope we don’t run into any Shylows,” Keemo whispered.

“They’d go for the Chims first,” Rukh whispered back.  “
From what I’ve heard, they hate them nearly as much as we do.”

“Not nearly,” Farn corrected in a growl.

Just then Brand suddenly emerged back into view.  “The caravan punched the Chims pretty hard,” Brand said.  “They’re down to a little over ten Fractures.”

Farn smiled in grim satisfaction.  “Then we killed over four thousand of them,” he said.  “A good start.”

“There’s something else,” Brand added.  “Something strange.  All the senior Baels – the ones with the most feathers hanging from their horns – they’re all gathered in a shallow vale about four or five miles from the rest of the Chims.”

“Any idea why?” Keemo asked.

“Of course.  We’ve all of us known what the horned bastards get up to at night,” Farn said with a derisive snort.  “We just didn’t feel like telling you.”

“Do you actually know then?” Keemo challenged.
  “Or are you just blowing bilge out your backhole as usual?”

Farn shook his head.

“Then piss off.”

Ever since the caravan’s destruction, Farn had become increasingly sarcastic and impatient with Keemo’s admittedly
asinine questions.  Usually, their jeering banter grated on Rukh’s nerves, and sometimes he even had to hold himself back from knocking some sense into their fool heads.  Tonight their arguing didn’t bother him.  He barely even heard them.  Something more important occupied his attention.  But first, he had to stifle the uncertain excitement building inside.  He needed to carefully think this through.

The senior Baels had separated from their main force.  Could they do it?  If there weren’t too many, then maybe…

“I need numbers and location,” Rukh said.

“There’s about fifty Baels and the same number of Tigons and Braids hanging around nearby acting as guards,” Brand said.  “Last I saw, they were about two mil
es northeast of us.  It’s just about a straight shot given how flat the land is around here.  Why?”

All at once, the budding anticipation drained away and left Rukh feeling hollow.  A hundred of them.  Too many.  Damn.

“What were you hoping to do?” Keemo asked.

“Kill them,” Rukh said.

“Kill who?  The Baels?” Farn asked.  “There’s no way.  Even if there were only twenty of them.  In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s no cover around here except for a few scrub trees and bushes.  They’d see us coming from a half-mile away.”

“And you think I’m stupid,” Keemo replied with a contemptuous shake of his head.  “We can Blend now, dumbass, remember?  They wouldn’t see nothing, not until we were right on them, like ugly on your face…”

Rukh wanted to mentally slap himself.  Keemo was right.  They could
Blend.  Rukh was seized with sudden excitement.  They
could
do this.

“If these Baels are their senior staff, and they’re having some kind of meet up, we could decapitate their army in one fell swoop,” Brand said, catching the fever of Rukh’s enthusiasm.

Rukh smiled, a predatory gleam in his eyes.  “We’re still faster than they are,” he said.  “Even Brand since he’s been practicing our Talents just like we have his.  We can evade the Tigons and Braids and get close enough to Fireball half the Baels before the others even figure out who’s sending them to the unholy hells.  And when they try to fight us…” he smiled again.  “We slip away like ghosts.”

An answering gleam lit Farn’s eyes.  “And then we hit them again when they try to return to their main army.”

“Yes,” Rukh answered.  “We can’t take all of them, but we can whittle their numbers down, especially if we get the feather wearers.”