Heirs of the Fallen: Book 02 - Crown of the Setting Sun (7 page)

“I can see your mind working, boy,” the man said, as if sensing Leitos’s last thought, “but you will not escape me. I can track a lizard up a bare stone cliff, even a soaring bird. It is not the tracks the lizard leaves, boy, or the feathers that fall from the bird’s wings, but the reek of fear they leave when they know they are sought. I can smell that fear on all creatures, great and small … and I can smell it on you, even in this damnable rain.”

“And you smell like the piss of a leprous goat,” Leitos snapped with a flare of irrepressible malice.

The back of the man’s rough hand crashed into Leitos’s cheek before he registered movement. His head rocked back, and a warm trickle of blood mingled with cold raindrops on his cheek. Dazed, Leitos righted himself. He peered at the man with narrowed eyes, a smoldering hatred searing away his entrenched humility, daring to imagine that someday he would seek out such despicable men, as well as all
Alon’mahk’lar
, delivering upon them the bloody justice they had earned—

The Hunter struck him again. The blow, harder by far than the first, knocked Leitos sprawling. Stunned, he floundered about, eyelids fluttering. He did not know how long he wallowed in the gritty mud of the riverbank, but eventually his head cleared.
Cunning
, he thought.
You must use your wits
.

Storing away that precious tidbit, schooling his features to meekness, he pushed himself up and bowed his head in a show of surrender. The Hunter laughed, a deep mocking rumble that made Leitos’s stomach clench.

“You cannot fool me so easily as that,” the Hunter drawled. “I can smell defiance as well as fear—and the first is fairly dripping off your skin … at least for now. By the time I return you to your masters, you will be timid as a suckling babe.”

“Where are they,” Leitos asked, “my masters?” He needed time to plan, and if any
Alon’mahk’lar
were close, time would be all the more precious.

The Hunter lashed out again. Leitos made a show of trembling before the man, even as the tip of his tongue ran over his split lower lip. If the abuse kept up, he might have to act sooner than he would like, which could only be to his disadvantage.

“First lesson, runt,” the Hunter said, “is to speak only when I give you leave to do so. The second lesson is that you do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it. Stand up.”

Leitos got to his feet. Falling into the role of the compliant slave was easier than he liked, but he would use that to his advantage … somehow he must. His cheek and jaw throbbed from the Hunter’s blows, but those pains were the least of his concerns. What mattered was getting far away from the man, and the
Alon’mahk’lar
that he served.

The Hunter stood as well, towering half a pace over Leitos, a creature of menacing power with broad shoulders, a deep chest, and fists seemingly carved from stone. The dark hollow of his hood turned slowly. Leitos felt as if he were looking into a yawning mineshaft that delighted in destroying anyone foolish enough to enter. This man was as dangerous, maybe more so, than any
Alon’mahk’lar
he had ever encountered.

The Hunter struck Leitos again, a vicious backhand. He reeled, trying to stay on his feet. Blood ran freely over his face from many cuts, and his skull felt cracked. He stumbled and collapsed.

“That, boy, was for speaking out of turn. This,” he said, kicking Leitos in the ribs hard enough to flip him onto his back, “is to make sure that you learned the first lesson.”

Leitos retched, but felt detached from his agonies and the situation. All thoughts of planning an escape had soared away. He had to act,
now
.

Groaning, he rolled to his belly. When he could see straight, he dared not look at his assailant, but rather focused on his fists sunk into the mud under his nose. Blood dribbled from his ruined lips in fat crimson drops onto the backs of his hands, staining his skin and mingling with the stinking mud. Below that, the fingers of one hand secretly clenched a river stone.

“Had enough … or do you need another lesson?”

Fury exploded within Leitos’s breast, threatening to drive back all his caution and sense. But if he gave in and attacked the Hunter outright, he would gain nothing, and more than likely lose any future chance at escape. Retaliate or bide his time? It was a difficult choice, left him grinding his teeth in frustration.

Over long moments, a sense of dark calm invaded his senses. He had made his decision, for good or ill. He began crawling away, first on his belly, then on his hands and knees, and then he was up, wobbling along on unsteady feet.

“Where are you going, boy?” the Hunter asked in derision. He made no attempt to follow, and Leitos judged that the man’s self-assurance was too great by far.

Grow strong and cruel
, Adham’s voice intoned, swirling like a sweet poison through Leitos’s veins. He kept walking, fueling his strength of will with an image of his grandfather standing tall against the
Alon’mahk’lar
.

“There is nowhere to go, boy,” the Hunter said, now sounding more irritated than mocking.

Leitos did not respond, just placed one foot in front of the other.
A little farther
. Dripping mud concealed the stone held in his fist, just in case.

He crossed the rising riverbank and scrambled up and over a sandy berm cut by the river when it flowed even higher than it did now. At his back, the Hunter had finally begun to drift after him.
Just a little farther.
To the fore, the desert stretched out, all sand, rock, and low-growing scrub made pungent by the rain. The only difference between when he had fled the mines and now was the storm had wetted the land, and clouds blotted the harsh sunlight. That last would soon end, for the storm had relented as it pushed farther north. Some many leagues south, dark clouds, having spent their wrath, were parting, showing patches of blue. Leitos trained his eyes on the west, and stumbled into a trot.

“BOY!”
The Hunter bellowed.

With a fleeting wish that he had never encountered the Hunter, that he had been able to remain on his little island where there was food, water, and safety in isolation, he stepped up his pace.

A moment later, he was running. His legs, stiff and shaky at first, soon found their rhythm; the muscles loosened, his stride lengthened. Hard breathing forced the last of the river water from his lungs, and he spat out the silty residue. The throbbing bruises from the Hunter’s blows faded. A single shout, incoherent for the rage it held, chased after him. Leitos did not heed it.
Let him catch me!
He laughed aloud, knowing a man so huge could not.

The sound of pounding feet, closing fast, evaporated his mirth.

Disbelieving, Leitos looked around. The big man was coming at a clip made all the more terrifying for its impossible speed. The Hunter’s hood still covered his face, but his motley garb streamed out behind him like the shredded wings of a bat.

Leitos bowed his head and ran faster. Where a rock or patch of prickly scrub presented itself as a barrier, he leaped over it. On the flat, his feet splashed through puddles, or dug into mud.

The Hunter matched his speed … then began closing the distance.

Leitos pushed himself into a flat sprint. He could not keep the pace long, but hoped he could outlast his pursuer. Heart thumping wildly, his blood pounded in his ears. Every breath came as ragged gasps, and still the footfalls at his back matched his, falling heavily, beating unceasingly at the damp desert floor, getting nearer with every step.

The Hunter had no trouble catching a breath, and had plenty to spare. “When I catch you, I’ll peel the hide from your rancid flesh a strip at a time!” he roared.

You will never catch me
, Leitos thought, but he no longer believed it. He ran as far and as long as he could, fully aware that he was losing the race. There was nowhere he could go that the Hunter could not follow.
Grow strong and cruel
. His grandfather’s command was his only hope, his only choice.…

Without slowing, Leitos rolled the stone in his palm until he had a secure and, he prayed, a deadly grip.

The Hunter surged closer, growling low in his throat like a demonic creature released from the Thousand Hells. Fleetingly, Leitos wondered again if a
man
had pulled him from the river, or actually something born of
Geh’shinnom’atar
.

With the Hunter right on his heels, Leitos pressed ahead with the last of his strength. His searching eyes locked on a jutting rock braced by a pair of scraggly bushes. He flew at it, imagining one possible outcome, and willing what he desired to happen.

At the last possible instant, Leitos turned sharply, ducking the huge man’s grasping hand. The Hunter twisted in a wild bid to catch hold of Leitos, and then his foot collided with the edge of the rock, stopping dead his forward momentum. He flipped through the air, limbs spread wide in four opposing directions. On the far side of the rock, the Hunter landed on his head with a heavy grunt, and crumpled limply to his back.

Leitos skidded to a halt, the stone raised in his hand, intending to hurl it if the man moved. The Hunter did not stir. He sucked wind until his heart quieted, then edged closer.

He is not breathing
, Leitos determined, failing to detect the rise and fall of the man’s chest. Still he waited. If the Hunter was merely stunned, he would soon rouse himself, and the race would begin again. If he was dead, then it did not matter.

I cannot run again
, Leitos thought wearily. Knowing that, however, meant he needed to be certain the man was dead, which in turn required that he get closer.
And what if he is still alive?
That question flew out of the darkness of his mind, as did the ensuing answer, the same answer that had come to him when he first began crawling away from the Hunter.
Then I must kill him.

Just considering that, and the means by which he would dispatch the Hunter, made his insides queasy. Before, there had been fury in his heart, but with the Hunter sprawled on his back, that fury had changed. He tried to find an alternative course, but the Hunter’s earlier boast weighed on his heart.
“I can track a lizard … even a soaring bird.”

Fighting the instinct to flee, Leitos inched nearer, skipping around a tall clump of brush to ensure the Hunter did not move while briefly out of sight. From two paces, the man looked no more alive than he had at ten paces.

Leitos crept closer … closer … until he stood over the sprawled Hunter. His tumble had pulled back his hood, revealing not a brutish face, as Leitos had envisioned, but one that was handsome, even noble. The Hunter was unkempt, to be sure, his strong jaw and chin furred with several day’s growth of beard, which was nearly as long as his close-cropped black hair. Grime made the swarthy skin of his cheeks and brow all the darker. Leitos could hardly imagine him being a betrayer of his own kind. The only flaw that marred the Hunter’s features was a rough, raised scar stretched across his throat. That, Leitos suspected, accounted for the harshness of the man’s voice.

A fly lighted on the Hunter’s cheekbone, wandered about, perhaps sipping from the raindrops and sweat that had collected on the man’s skin.
Or
it has come to feast on dead flesh
.

As he knelt down by the Hunter’s side, it crossed his mind to smash the stone against the man’s temple, just as he had slammed another stone against the adder’s skull. The memory of the mangled mess he had made of the serpent’s head kept him from taking that action. It felt wrong to desecrate a corpse. Nevertheless, he held the stone overhead in one hand, and reached out with the other.

At the first touch, Leitos recoiled. The Hunter’s clothing was soiled, stiff, and greasy. Moreover, the man’s odor truly hit him for the first time, the stench of old sweat, rancid meat, and other unmentionable filth.

He had to know if the Hunter had any life left in him.
He had to know.
The sooner done, the sooner he could continue his westward journey toward the Crown of the Setting Sun, somewhere beyond the Mountains of Fire. For the first time, he was amazed to realize that the thought of that journey did not trouble him, but rather filled him with a glimmer of his grandfather’s hope….

Admonishing himself for delaying, Leitos pressed his hand firmly on the Hunter’s chest. His mouth fell open at the powerful thud of the man’s beating heart. His gaze flicked to the man’s face even as the Hunter’s dark eyes flared open, gleaming with a mad cruelty that destroyed his comeliness.

A squawk of terror burst from Leitos’s throat. Too late, he swung his weapon. The Hunter batted his hand aside, and the stone flew free. Then a massive fist clutched around Leitos’s throat, squeezing so tight that he could not breathe, let alone cry out. Leitos clawed at the man’s fingers. The Hunter drew him near, turned his head this way and that, as if seeking something behind his eyes.

The Hunter grinned, an ugly expression. “You should have broken my skull, boy,” he growled. “Would have been an easy kill—I was gone for a moment—and I deserved to die for misjudging you.”

He drew Leitos close. “Your third lesson, boy, is that mercy is for the weak,” he whispered, his thick fingers tightening around Leitos’s throat. The Hunter drew back his other fist and rammed it forward. Leitos felt no pain, no anything. In an instant, the day was made night.

M
ercy is for the weak
.… the words were soft, sinister. Leitos loomed over the Hunter, for some reason sure he had done this before. He shook his head, thinking that strange thought about mercy was fitting and so true.
Mercy is for the weak … and I am weak no longer.
He swung the stone, cracking it against the Hunter’s skull. The man’s eyes flared wide. He reached up and caught Leitos throat. Leitos tried to jerk back, tried to shout—

Agonies beyond count assailed Leitos as he started awake. He lay there taking deep, ragged breaths that burned his throat, wondering what had happened, why was he not battering in the Hunter’s skull….