Green: The Beginning and the End (33 page)

He could not resist her. Not now, not ever. Samuel dropped to the ground, walked to Janae, and kissed her deeply.

It was time for war. It was time for the slaughter.

40

All had drunk the red waters and eaten their fill of fruit and pork around a huge fire late into the night. Desperate to justify their reason for staying true, they’d danced hard and sung long and told a thousand tales of glory, many of which started with an element of truth, then spun into wild metaphors that delighted the whole crowd.

But when they awoke, the reality of their loss had robbed most of their passion, and they stared with tired eyes. What now?

“Maybe we should have gone,” Tubin, one of the older council members, said.

“You doubt already?” Johan demanded.

“Thomas is gone. Chelise is gone. Samuel is gone. Half of the Circle is gone! But we stand here, waiting. I’m not suggesting we join the battle, but many of us have loved ones there, facing death.” He glared, frowning with disgust.

Mikil didn’t blame him. They all had dearly loved friends, and in some cases family, who’d been swept away by Samuel’s call.

“Elyon knows, I thought about going myself,” she said. “His case was compelling. And if we, who’ve seen everything from the beginning, could be so easily tempted, then think about what must be going through the minds of the rest.” She looked at a mother who watched them while squatting on the ground with her daughter nearby. “They’ve stayed true, but we need to give them more.”

“Then let me take a dozen of the fastest scouts and report back,” Ronin said. He was eager to go after Vadal, his son. But they’d all lost dear ones to Samuel.

“No. We’ve already lost Chelise on a fool’s errand. The people don’t need to see more of their leaders running off. We should stay, all of us.”

“And do what?” Ronin demanded.

Mikil walked to the edge of the pool and stared at her reflection in the red waters. So still, so unmoving. But there was something else here. She faced the rest of the council, then stared past them to a small, dark-skinned child on a rock, who also watched them. She didn’t recognize the child. The Circle had grown so fast these past few years that she didn’t recognize half of them.

A thin mother with long, straight black hair leaned against a boulder and nursed an infant. Boys too impatient to sit still kicked the skin of a bundled tawii fruit back and forth, keeping it in the air. A girl nearly of marrying age, perhaps sixteen, was braiding the hair of a younger girl, who sat with her back to them. A warrior—interesting that they still called the old Guard that—sat with crossed arms, lost in thought under the shade of a pond palm, named for its proximity to the red pools.

But no one was talking. Not even a breeze rustled the leaves. An odd silence hung in the air.

Mikil turned back to the pool and stared at the silky red surface. “When you look at this water, what do you see?” she asked.

The other nine eased over. “Water, like glass,” said Susan.

“Water,” Mikil repeated. “With these eyes, it’s all we see at the moment. But if we open the eyes of our hearts, what do we see?”

“The drowning that made the waters red,” Johan said.

Mikil nodded. “And our own deaths, which brought us life. Every day we look at this pool and see water. Beautiful water, but just water. Yet what kind of life has it given us?”

“The hope of a return to Elyon’s playground,” Johan said, using the metaphor the poets often used.

“Our entire hope is dimly seen through this glass,” Mikil said, nodding at the water. “It’s there, just below the surface, and we see glimpses of it every day. Isn’t this what Thomas once taught us?” She bent down, picked up a small lemon, and tossed it in her hand. “Elyon’s gifts to us are simply a foretaste to keep us eager for the banquet. Isn’t that what our poets have told us?”

“It is as she says,” someone said softly.

“She speaks the truth.”

“So where is that hope?” Mikil said, dropping the lemon.

They stared at the pond in silence. Mikil couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was an inexplicable stillness hanging over the waters. Easy to miss if she wasn’t focused on it, but there just the same. It was easy to forget just how enchanted the red pools were.

“To many, the hope of winning peace through the sword is more real than what the poets have to offer,” Rohan said, speaking for the first time.

No one disagreed. They all seemed strangely fixated on the water, perhaps sensing the same unnatural stillness that Mikil did. Or perhaps they wondered if Samuel’s hope was more realistic than what lay beyond this still pool after all. Samuel had come with tangibles.

Words.

A sword.

The head of a Horde.

An
army
, for the love of Elyon. An army large enough to win the peace they required to live as normal human beings.

The pool at their feet, on the other hand, sat still as it did every morning. Just a red pool without . . .

Mikil’s thoughts were cut short by a faint stirring in the pond, not ten feet from where she stood. Strange. There were no fish in this pool as in some of the larger ones. But the water was indeed moving, boiling gently, right there. She shivered.

“What’s happening?” Johan asked, taking a step backward. “What . . .”

Water burst from the surface like a fountain. Only in this fountain there was a form. A blond-headed boy with chin tilted back, smiling wide as the water streamed off his face.

Mikil gasped and jumped back.

The pool thrust the boy above the surface, and he was laughing before his feet hit the shore. He was green-eyed, blond, thin, and clearly beside himself with whatever impossible force had brought him on such a ride.

He landed next to them with a slap of feet and looked up, grinning.

“Hello, Mikil,” he said, but she didn’t see his lips move. Water ran off his curved fingertips and wet the sand. She stood frozen, speechless.

The boy glanced at the others, and she knew that they were hearing him too, speaking each of their names. Mikil was so stunned by the boy’s sudden appearance that she found her limbs immovable.

This was no ordinary boy. This was no boy at all. This was the one Thomas had spoken about many times.

This was Elyon, and the when the full realization hit her, Mikil could no longer breathe.

The boy leaped ten feet to a rock that overhung the pool, then bounced up to a precipice that overlooked the whole camp.

The water erupted again, and Mikil spun back. Their pool hurled another form from the depths, and this time Mikil half expected to see the Warrior. But it wasn’t Elyon.

It was Thomas, and he was laughing with near hysterics as the water drained from his face and mouth. He landed on the shore, wetter than a freshly drowned albino, and jerked his head around, searching.

“Where is he?” His voice sounded muffled by water. He spit it out, more than could have come from his mouth alone, like those who emerged after drowning. “Where is he?”

“Follow him!” the boy cried, and Thomas snapped his head up.

The voice echoed down the canyon, and the whole camp spun to face the boy up on the cliff. He pointed down to the pool.

“Hear Thomas, your leader! Open your eyes and follow him to my playground!” he cried, swinging his fist through the air with infectious exhilaration.

The boy spun and ran into the desert, leaving breathless silence in his wake.

Were they to follow? Mikil turned to Thomas, who stood looking up at the empty cliff. But before he could tell them what the boy meant, the air around them began to move.

A breeze whipped up and swept after the boy, as if his invisible army was hard on his heels. A long streak of red swept over the canyon like a low-flying comet. A blue shaft materialized beside the red.

As if the sky itself were rolling back like a scroll to reveal its true colors, streams of every hue flowed directly over their heads, silent, but so low that a person on the cliff might reach up and touch one.

The colored streaks rose and parted to make way for a wide swath of white clouds rolling through the sky high above.

But these were not clouds, Mikil saw. They were Roush. Millions of the furry white creatures, flying in formation a mile over their heads.

The boy had opened their eyes to see what he saw.

Thomas was clambering up the same rocks marked by the boy’s wet feet and hands. He crouched on the cliff, stared east for a moment, then faced the stunned crowd.

He shoved a finger at the eastern horizon. “This, my friends, is our hope!” he thundered.

The soft sounds of weeping filtered through the amphitheater. Mikil understood the sentiment, because her own chest was flooded with an emotion she’d never quite felt: a raw sensation of gratitude so intense that any cry of thanks would understate it tenfold.

Tears blurred her vision, and her breathing came hard. She felt weak and wanted to fall to her knees like some of the others; she wanted to thrust her fists into the air and cry, “I knew it, I knew it!”

Instead she let a sob shake her body.

“This is our day!” Thomas cried. “I have tasted and I have seen, and now Elyon is calling his bride to the great wedding feast.”

A woman she’d never seen before, dressed in strange blue pants and a white blouse, stepped up behind him. Unlike him, she was dry. But then she hadn’t come through the water.

“Thomas?” the woman said.

He spun and regarded her in a moment’s shock. Then he grabbed her hand and held it up for them to see. “My sister from the histories. She’s with me.”

Two weeks ago it would have been a preposterous suggestion, but today it seemed perfectly natural. Yes, of course, this was Kara Hunter from the histories. Mikil should have known immediately.

Thomas sprang down to a lower boulder, practically dragging his sister with him. “Mount your fastest horses, every man, woman, and child. Leave it all behind. Everything! No water, no food, nothing but yourself and your children.”

Thomas leaped to the ground, eyes bright with a fanaticism Mikil had come to know well. “Now!” he roared, sweeping his arm. “Follow me now!”

They ran as one. The raw intensity of the moment precluded more than a few cries as they swept up those too young or too old to match Thomas’s sprint.

Colorful ribbons flanked the army of Roush high above. And now light shimmered on either side, reaching all the way to the ground, forming a tunnel that streamed directly east.

“Faster!” Thomas cried. “Run, run, run!”

Every albino was accustomed to quick flight, ready at a moment’s notice to flee any Horde threat. And this . . . this call to follow Thomas to Elyon’s playground made any threat of death seem like a child’s mud pie.

They sprang onto the backs of unsaddled horses and whipped the animals to a full gallop, close on Thomas’s heels. And he wasn’t waiting, despite having to care for a sister unfamiliar with her horse. Likewise, she seemed too caught up in this mind-blowing encounter to worry about her lack of equestrian skills.

Mikil cried out to Thomas as he flew by, his eyes pinned on the horizon. He pulled up and looked about frantically. “Where’s Chelise?”

“She’s already gone to Qurong.”

Without a word, he slammed his horse’s sides and bolted forward. Then Mikil was hard after him, trying to catch up as they raced out of the valley.

“Faster!” Mikil hear Marie cry to those behind her. “Faster!”

They spilled from the canyon into the desert in a cloud of dust, and Mikil pulled up hard. Thomas sat on his black stallion beside Kara, staring at a rider mounted on a white stallion on the next dune.

The tunnel of light flowed around him, whipping his hair and a robe of red around his white battle leathers.

Elyon the Warrior
.

The stallion under him reared and whinnied, pawing at the air. The warrior had a sword in his hand, and he now lifted it high over his head, pointing it at the massive formation of Roush.

Then Elyon screamed at the sky, and Mikil thought her ears might burst under the power of this one cry of victory. He swept his sword toward the eastern horizon and called out in a voice that no one within a mile could mistake.

“Follow me, my bride! Follow me!”

And then Elyon raced east, and the seven thousand rode after him with the colored wind in their hair.

East, my bride, east. Toward the Valley of Miggdon. Toward the Horde. Toward the battle.

41

“I don’t like it.” Qurong stood on a flat rock ledge and gazed at the two armies—his to the right, three hundred thousand strong for all Eram could know, and the Eramite army to his left across the valley, half the strength of his own. But they had albinos with them, more than four thousand from what scouts had been able to determine.

“That old fox was right. This is his son’s doing. They have something up their sleeves.”

“
I
have something up
our
sleeves, you impotent old fool!” Ba’al shouted.

Qurong jerked his head to the dark priest, taken aback by his loss of control. A terrible sound rolled through the sky, high above. The sound of a strong wind moaning through a hollow, but there was no wind.

The sound passed.

“You see? It’s a sign.” Ba’al removed frightened eyes from the sky and bowed his head. “Forgive me, my lord. I beg your forgiveness. But victory is in our hands! You heard.”

“I heard a wind. And I heard your insult.”

“It’s here!” Ba’al made a fist out of his scrawny white fingers and shook it. “It’s right here, and my lover is ravenous for it. We must attack now!”

“Perhaps I should cut out your tongue first. And then we will see.”

“You speak this way to his lover?” Ba’al demanded.

“I speak this way to my priest.”

“I will remind you that you pledged—”

“To Teeleh, not to you.”

Cassak stood by, wearing a frown. “The sun is high, my lord. We have eight more hours of light. I suggest we either execute our plan before nightfall or prepare for a long night of sparring with the albinos. And that won’t be pretty.”

“Be prepared for deception,” Ba’al said. “Kill any albino who comes close, no matter what their intention.”

“And if they mean to surrender?”

“Kill them!”

Cassak looked at Qurong. “My lord?”

“Yes. Kill any who approach. We trust no one.”

“I’ll pass the word. Should we deploy, my lord?”

Qurong fought through the fog of confusion that had not left his mind since his daughter dared to cross the desert to meet him. A week ago he would have refused to think of her as
Daughter
. But now . . .

It was maddening. The walls he’d successfully erected against love over so many years were crumbling around him. First Thomas had tricked him into a dream state, where nothing was as it seemed. Then Chelise brought news of his grandson, Jake.

Qurong had no other offspring but a grandchild fathered by his greatest enemy, Thomas. The supreme commander’s inability to toss them all from his mind infuriated him.

Chelise, his feisty daughter whom he had once loved more than any treasure in his possession, was back—just there, on the horizon of his mind, calling to be loved by him once again. He stood overlooking a valley in which there would soon be more dead flesh than living, and he was thinking of only one person. No matter how absurd or naive her philosophy, she was still Chelise of Qurong.

“My lord?”

“I’m thinking!”

“We’re running out of time,” Cassak warned.

“They’re up to something. I can feel it in my bones. They have something up their sleeves.”

“As do we, my lord,” Ba’al said. “As we most certainly do.”

“What? What do we have besides another two hundred thousand men to send into the slaughter? I don’t know your
real
plan, only that you keep insisting on some unseen magic.”

“Have faith!” the dark priest screamed. He blinked, then settled. “Forgive me.” He slipped his hands into the arms of his robe and turned a stoic stare at the Eramite army.

“They have broken their covenant,” he said. “This harlot who’s come to them has removed their covering, I am assured of that.”

“That’s it? I throw my army into danger on the back of a harlot and more religious jargon?”

Ba’al jerked his head around. “Listen, you fool.” Spittle flew from stretched lips. “The powers of the air are far more potent than your little army. For many years the albinos have been untouchable. The half-breeds have all once bathed, like myself . . . we’ve all been protected till this day. All but pure-bred Horde have been under the covering of Elyon. But now that covenant has been broken!”

Qurong wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. A horse snorted behind him; a mace’s chain rattled over metal. Ba’al’s nostrils flared, unrepentant this time. But it was his claim that screamed at Qurong.

“You’re saying what? That
you
were once Forest Guard? That you’re half-breed?”

The dark priest faced the valley. “I am lover of Marsuuv, made whole by his blood. And now that you know, I will have to open your eyes so that you won’t kill me.”

He bent, grabbed a handful of dust at his feet, spit into it, and flung it at Qurong. The glob of mud slapped him square in the face and he stepped back, appalled.

“What’s this?” he thundered.

“Open his eyes, Marsuuv, my lover.”

Qurong wiped the mud off, face flushed with heat. And when he opened his eyes, he found that he couldn’t see properly. The valley had darkened.

“Look above, Qurong. See what awaits all who have broken the covenant.”

Qurong lifted his eyes and caught his breath. The Shataiki he’d seen at the high place were back. Thicker now. Blotting out the sun. Soaring through the sky not a thousand yards over their heads, with talons extended and red eyes glaring. Only at him, it seemed.

“Elyon help us.”

“No, my lord. Elyon help
them
. But he won’t. They’ve turned their backs on him. Now they will be flesh for the beasts.”

“And what about me? Or you, for that matter? You don’t think they would as soon tear us to shreds?”

“No. We’ve brokered a deal with the devils and pledged our allegiance, so that we will be spared along with our people. Do you forget already?”

It was beginning to make sense to Qurong. This was the reason behind his blood-drinking ritual. He didn’t understand the full import of what he was seeing and hearing, but this must surely be the day of the dragon.

“So these Shataiki can only go after the half-breeds?”

“Yes. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Supernatural matters always have their caveats.”

This would be the end, Qurong thought.

“Send the first wave,” Ba’al said. “Send it while we still have their favor.”

Qurong turned to Cassak, who was looking up, clearly lost as to what they were seeing. “Send in our first twenty thousand,” he ordered. “Infantry. Ready the archers. Spare no one.”

It was no wonder Horde generally shied from water and bathed only through pain. He tried some of the beetle nut, but the taste was too bitter.

Yet, even knowing he was Horde, he didn’t resent his condition. It made him more like Eram. It fit into the greater world. And really, he wasn’t sure why he’d been so offended by the scabbing disease to begin with.

It’s taking your mind as well, Samuel
.

Yes. Yes, there was that.

“They come!”

“Steady!” Eram called.

Samuel was jerked back to the moment. He leaped into his saddle and galloped to the front lines where Eram, Janae, and his generals were mounted, fixated on the valley. He pulled up between the Eramite leader and his witch, veins thumping with adrenaline.

“What is it?”

“Nice of you to join us, Son of Hunter,” Eram said. “Qurong’s finally grown a set and is sending his first men to die.”

A sea of infantry was spilling over the crest, sweeping into the valley.

“How many have not taken the water?” Eram demanded of no one in particular.

“Fifty thousand, as instructed,” his general said.

“The rest carry the poison in their blood?”

Janae responded. “Yes. All of them.”

Eram spat, and his red spittle slapped into Samuel’s boot before falling to the ground. Samuel caught the leader’s eyes.

“Sorry about that.” Eram studied the Horde army nearing the bottom of the far slope. “I’d say about twenty thousand men on foot. I’m surprised Qurong would be so obvious. Exactly as I predicted, he’s trying to draw us.”

“We can’t show our strength yet,” Samuel said. “Send fifty thousand.” “Yes, my new Horde general. That’s exactly what I will do.” He smirked at Samuel. “And you will lead them.”

Samuel blinked at the man. “I’m sorry, I—”

“I need a general in the valley, my friend. Someone I can trust. I’ve decided you’re the best choice.” He snapped his fingers at his other general. “Send them now, General, the fifty thousand who have not taken the poison. Tell the captains they will take orders from Samuel once they’re in battle. And tell them to send every last one of those Scabs back to hell.”

“Yes, sir.”

Samuel looked at Janae, but she didn’t appear at all concerned by the decision. Her eyes were on the empty horizon to her left, where empty desert waited. And beyond the desert, the Black forest.

He still wasn’t having great success wrapping his thoughts around Eram’s decision to send him down. Naturally, he wasn’t afraid. Far from it, thoughts of slaying Horde and taking glory were already pulling at him. But what motive did Eram really have?

“Samuel, you’re questioning my judgment?” Eram asked.

“No, sir.”

“I need your men to see you go down that hill, and I need them to see you kill Horde. I’ve just been informed that some of them are complaining about a rash. I would send them all down now, before they have a chance to realize they have the disease, but their presence on the battlefield now might spook Qurong, you understand? But one albino, the Son of Hunter—now that would tempt Qurong to send his whole army in at once.”

“My men are turning Horde?”

“Are they?” He said it as if he’d expected nothing less. “They’ve taken the mark and given their hearts to its maker. What did you expect?” A gentle smile. “But the transition will take some time. We have to fight before we lose our physical advantage.”

The thought that Eram was a brilliant tactician and the thought that Janae had betrayed the albinos entered Samuel’s mind as one. But at the moment, only the former seemed terribly important. Had he expected anything less from his witch?

A flood of Eramite warriors broke over the crest to his left. Infantry. The ground rumbled with the footfalls of fifty thousand as the heavily armored warriors plunged down the slope. No cry yet. The two armies rushed toward each other.

Samuel’s pulse surged and he nudged his horse forward, then brought it back around. “Just restrain those archers. I don’t need an arrow in my back.”

Eram nodded. “Watch for Qurong’s next wave. He’ll commit the bulk of his force; you’ll know it’s coming when he launches the fireballs. I’ll send reinforcements as soon as he takes our bait, beginning with the albinos. Until then, hold them. Once they descend, the disease will spread. We’ll see just how effective this poison really is.”

The stampede of warriors still rushed over the crest. Janae still looked to the north, always to the north.

Now she looked at him and smiled gently. “Come here, lover.”

“Say your good-byes quickly,” Eram said, pulling his horse around. “Your battle awaits you.”

Samuel pulled his mount next to Janae’s, facing the opposite direction. He impulsively leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. The smell of her breath drew him as the blood had. He knew that Teeleh had changed her into something less than any woman he’d ever known, and he wondered if he would be so fortunate as to have a similar experience.

“Good-bye, my love,” she said. “It’s been good to join with you for a while.”

“I have no intention of dying,” he said, looking into her lost eyes. “I’ll be back.”

“And I’ll be gone. I’ve done what I was meant to do.”

“Gone? No, no, you can’t leave now!”

“But I must. I’ve finished my task here. They are deceived, all of them. Now my true lover calls me.” She put her hand on his forearm. “Maybe when this is all over, you can join me, if he will allow it. I think you would like it.”

“The Black Forest?”

“No,” she said. “Earth. Two thousand years ago.”

The histories. He didn’t know what to say. A roar erupted from the valley behind him, and he twisted to see the two armies clash. Their leading edges feathered into each other like two black clouds meeting head-on. But here, the union was brutal and bloody, and already, screams of the dying mixed with cries of bravado and rage. He had to go!

“Then wait for me,” he said, spinning back. But she was already headed away, sitting like an elegant queen on her pale mare. “Janae!”

She looked back, wearing her perpetual smirk. “Die well, Samuel.”

“Janae . . .”

“General!” They were calling him. He could see Vadal watching him. As were all of the albino warriors. And another ten thousand Eramites. All eyes were on him. His army fought now, slaying the Horde as he’d always dreamed. Glory awaited.

Samuel spun his horse around, dug his heels into its flanks with enough power to crack a rib, and plunged into the Valley of Miggdon.