Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset (19 page)

“Don’t be such a
tetsa
,” said Benzo, following him back into the barroom. “I’ll even buy you one!”

“If you get me some information,
I’ll
buy
you
the drink.”

Benzo smiled. “It’s a deal then!”

“I’ll be seeing you.” Owein headed for the door.

Benzo shouted after him, loud enough for the whole bar to hear, “And quit calling on my mother. You know she’s too old for you!”

A few patrons laughed, but Owein chose to ignore him and left.

It was a nonstop sprint for the Disciples of Votoc. They raced with the horde for the Tomb, neck and neck, neither side willing to rest. Now that the Geldr knew where it was, they had only to get there and their mission would be complete. The Vali, however, still had to find some way to stop them. Their only hope now was to beat them to the Tomb and defend it.

The army of the south had been running across the desert ever since the battle of Rwahji Crater ended. The sun had risen a few hours after its conclusion. In the southwest behind them, the wreckage was marked by a great, spewing font of volcanic ash. The plume stretched endlessly into the air, arcing over their heads, and reaching out decidedly into the north-northeast.

The Geldr ran undaunted, as if propelled by an unseen demonic force. The grey-skinned beasts appeared immune to the sweltering treatment of the sun and sand, and so ran for
itthum
without slowing pace. The desert natives had trouble keeping up with them.

Most of the Disciples had secured steeds, but even the heartiest camel could not hope to sprint for a full day through the merciless desert of Val. When they inevitably faltered and slowed, choking for air, the Disciples had to abandon their rides and carry on by their own two feet, running abreast of the horde.

The terrain changed along the way. The crumbly clay of the west surrendered to dusty foothills, which were now becoming tiny mountains of near-white sand. The dunes were growing larger and larger, steeper and steeper.

Each time Fahi mounted the crest of one he tried to resist the temptation to look out, lest he see endless waves of dunes undulating into the horizon in every direction. There was no vegetation here – not for
itthum
around. And certainly no water, except for scraps of moisture buried impossibly deep underground. Whether or not they made it to the Tomb, Fahi had little hope that many of them – on either side – would survive this.

By his estimation, around a thousand Geldr had made it out of the Crater to charge onward to the Tomb. He could see them sprinkled across the dunes all around him. Of the Vali, he knew only the Disciples stood any chance of keeping up with them. The abilities of even the most disciplined warrior were tested in this heat.

From a vantage point along the slope of one hill he took count of the number of Disciples he could see amongst the horde. Extrapolating, he guessed only one or two hundred Disciples were still moving with the pack. Many had died from the falling rock and the flood of lava. Even more suffocated in the cloud of volcanic smoke that kept pace with them the whole way. The few with any remaining strength chased on.

Periodically a Disciple caught up to a Geld and lopped his head off or slashed at his legs. They might’ve had a chance at defeating them this way if time were on their side. But there were so many Geldr, and the Tomb might be on the other side of the next dune….

Fahi noticed someone small on the dune behind him. It was Havlah, still at his father’s side. The toughness of that boy shocked him. Not many of the Disciples possessed that kind of endurance. He assumed that Votoc must have special plans for this one – the son of one of His greatest servants.

It was everything Havlah could do just to drag one foot in front of the other. And then do it again. And Again. Eventually, he was sure, he’d lose the energy to lift his foot high enough and it would snag, and face-plant him into the sand.

He had taken a healthy camel from the stable, one that lasted hours longer than the others. But the horde, relentless in its hurrying, began to escape them on the horizon, and Havlah was left with no choice but to ditch the animal and run alongside everyone else.

They huffed and wheezed for hours on end, unable to think beneath the unrelenting punishment of the sun’s rays. They finished off the last of their waterskins before noon, dropping the empty bladders to the sand without stopping.

The pain throughout Havlah’s body steadily worsened until he couldn’t imagine anything more excruciating. After that, he simply lost all bearing of degree. His lungs ached, his legs burned, and his skin blistered. His clothes, fully saturated with perspiration, did nothing to cool him. Instead, the damp weight tried to slow him down, so he cast off the layers. While trying to remove the final layer, his thobe, Jerahd spoke to him for the first time since he had found him beneath the rock.

“Don’t,” was all he said, barely audible between heaving breaths.

Havlah obeyed. Aside from that, all Havlah had left was his sword which he held in his hand since he’d thrown off his belt and sheath. He’d wanted to discard it long ago, but he knew better. Earlier the weapon had seemed so light and nimble, but now it was a fat, iron girder in his grip. He switched it from hand to hand, but that only succeeded in exhausting both his arms, from the fingertips all the way to his shoulder blades. He could feel his lower back complaining as well.

His father was a machine, running with a solid, measured gait that never wavered. He had not taken off a single item of clothing; even his shemagh was still bouncing around his neck like a bandana. Sweat streamed down his face, but nothing, it seemed, could hamper his spirit. He ran like a force of nature across the sands of Val, unwilling to quit – ruthless with his own body.

This inspiration was the only thing that had kept Havlah going for the past several hours. His mind had long since lost the capacity to consider anything else.

Havlah noticed the shadow of a nearby dune. He had noticed it. Taken notice. Something had registered.

Why?
he wondered.

His thinking was occluded by the turmoil inside his body. It took him several long moments to understand this simple fact: the shadows were steepening. Looking behind, Havlah could see that the sun was on its way back down again along the western horizon. He tried to be amazed with himself for running for an entire day, but his stubborn brain, baked and rattling within his skull, refused to compute the significance.

Ahead and above, Havlah became hypnotized by the cloud of dust left hanging in the air atop the dune hill. A few Geldr ahead of him had just gone down the other side, leaving a trail of hasty tracks in their wake. That single second of distraction was enough, and Havlah’s legs gave out underneath him.

The dune swung right up and swatted him in the face. He sank into it – he felt it consume him. The hot sand swam around him, and he was unable to move.

“Come on,” said a haggard voice. It must have belonged to his father, because that’s who was lifting him to his feet. Jerahd half-dragged his son the rest of the way up the bluff. When they reached its apex they both nearly fell right down the other side.

There, at the base of the hill before them, was the entrance to the Tomb of Feth.

It was not a spectacular sight. In fact, it was notably inconspicuous. A simple stone archway, the size of any common door, was set into the side of an abnormally small dune, a fraction of the size as those that surrounded it. Footprints of stamping Geldr messed up the sand in a big wedge that terminated at the doorway.

We’re too late
, thought Fahi when he saw it. It looked like hundreds had already made it inside. And more were still coming. He greeted the oncoming Geldr with his sword. They were too depleted to put up much of a fight. As he cut them down one by one, Fahi saw the twinkling of stars overhead. Night was quickly approaching.

More Disciples joined him by the door, including Jerahd and his son. Soon they amassed a unit of about thirty men. When the last Geld was slain, the Disciples of Votoc exchanged wordless glances. The pursuit was over. Now, they all knew, came the hard part.

Fahi looked up at Aelmuligo, burning in the heavens, shining down upon them. He touched his hand to his forehead, then to his heart, and then bowed to the House of the Gods. The other Disciples did likewise, and Havlah as well.

Still panting for breath, and with gelatin for legs, the small band of warrior-monks ambled toward the entrance of the Tomb with weapons drawn.

Inside it was chillingly cool. A narrow set of black stone steps led straight down, leaving the hot, unforgiving desert behind. In cold darkness they cautiously and – Havlah noted – very quietly, descended the stairs toward the horde. The further they went, the more their exhaustion was lifted. The icy, damp air below the surface helped to replenish them.

Meanwhile ghostly echoes traveled up to them from the inky depths below, indistinct sounds of clamoring. At times, they were sure they heard faraway human screams. From those haunting sounds no one could tell quite how far ahead the horde was, or, indeed, just how deep the tunnel might go.

Havlah’s flesh, singed red-hot by the sun, now puckered in the chill air. Without the sensation there to remind him, he would’ve forgotten what cold had felt like. He was suddenly thankful he had listened to his father and kept his thobe on. Very soon he would be shivering.

The light from the mouth of the stairs had long since disappeared behind the Disciples. Now they, with Havlah, stalked blindly onward in pure blackness. The Tomb supplied the most profound darkness Havlah had ever witnessed: the utter absence of light. He couldn’t even see his own hand a single
plir
from his face.

The Disciples were sure-footed in the dark, or in any condition it seemed, but Havlah was not so coordinated. Each step he took was a complete guess, and as often as he guessed right, he guessed wrong. Incredibly, with each misstep a Disciple’s hand found him just as he began to topple over, and it stabilized him. Trying to navigate these stairs on his own, he would have tumbled all the way to the bottom long ago. But with Disciples both in front of him and behind, he hadn’t so much as bounced into the wall.

This agonizing process carried on and on. Havlah would stumble blindly forward, and hands in the darkness would catch him when he missed his footing. Without visual cues, Havlah began to lose sense of time. Soon he didn’t know if they had been in the Tomb for minutes or days. All he had left were the meager remains of his consciousness, and the terrible sounds wafting up from the deep….

Havlah couldn’t be sure at first, but eventually his eyes screamed it at him: there was light up ahead. It gradually illuminated the silhouettes of the Disciples marching down the stairs in front of him. There it was at last… the bottom of the stairs.

They came out into a claustrophobic anteroom with a very low ceiling. The little room was carven out of solid rock. Unlike the rough, powdery stuff that poked up on the surface of the desert far above, this rock was jet black – slick and hard. The floor was fine sand, just like the kind Havlah knew from home.

Opposite the stairs was a doorway, straddled by two sconces holding freshly lit torches. The Disciples gathered in a circle.

“Who has the map?” asked Fahi. “Where’s Gezia?”

Havlah saw the man he met outside his tent the night before step forward. He rummaged through his robes and pulled out a ragged shard of leather. He handed it, limp with sweat, to Fahi. The leader of the Disciples looked at it sternly, rotating it in his hands to find his bearings. After a moment, he turned to face the door, and in doing so revealed the piece of animal skin to Havlah. He could see a dark scrawling etched into it, a hundred thin, black lines curving through and around each other in hopeless confusion. If it was a map, it was of some bewildering, labyrinthine maze.

“Okay…” said Fahi softly. “Let’s go.”

And with that, they started off through the doorway into the shadowy abyss beyond. As they entered the darkness again, Havlah’s instincts told him to snatch one of the torches from the wall, but he had to fight it. The Disciples walked right past them.

From the glowing light of the anteroom, Havlah could see that they were headed into a system of caves. The walls were not hewn by hand anymore, but by eons of flowing water, which left them jagged and angular, rugged and untamed. Everything glistened wet in the jumpy light, which revealed massive hunks of rock jutting out of the floor, or dangling low from the ceiling. It looked like he’d be needing the Disciples help again.

After a short distance they were enshrouded in the gloom again, and the stealth of Havlah’s companions left him alone inside his head once more… alone with the sounds of the cave.

An icy breeze blew gently on his face, not steadily like on the surface, but in little waves, like he was inside the breathing lungs of the earth itself. The animal shrieks and jostling he had heard from the stairs were much closer now, and louder, though not any more distinct.

A few of the sounds, he could have sworn, must have come from just around a corner. But he couldn’t see any corner, and he didn’t sense the Disciples react. He tried his hardest not to let himself scream out loud, and instead concentrated just on keeping his feet moving. Every so often he’d feel a hand on his shoulder guiding him left or right, turning him around so regularly that he very soon lost all sense of direction. He was totally at the mercy of the mysterious hands in the dark.

After wandering through the caves in complete silence for so long, the sudden shriek of Geldr war cries frightened him to his very core. They were not extremely close, but deeper down the cave – a few
entilum
away. The frontline of the Disciples must have found them, and he could hear the fighting clearly through the still cavern air. The tiniest clank reverberated eternally all around him, and rung in his ears like a gong.