Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) (21 page)

“Thank you,” he breathed, knowing that if anyone had seen what she had done, the best she could have hoped for would have been a dozen lashes on the Kal’ai-Il.
 

She paused as if she were about to say something, but then shook her head slowly. With one last piercing look into his eyes, she turned her back to him, bowed her head, and disappeared.

Tara-Khan took the short sword and strapped it to his waist. For a long moment he thought about ending his life with it. But that would have sealed his dishonor forever, for those whose braids had been severed were not granted the release of ritual suicide. His true punishment was to live in shame for as long as possible.
 

And live he would, but not to prolong his shame. He would fight to stay alive until his last breath was wrenched away from him, for he clung to the hope of seeing Keel-Tath’s face again, of feeling her touch, of thrilling to her powerful voice in the song of his blood. Of earning her forgiveness.

Staying alive, however, would be a most daunting task. Winter on the Homeworld was harsh, especially inland where the warmth from the seas did not reach, and was lethal to those who were unprepared. The conditions found in the northern wastes surrounding the Kal-Uzmir were far, far worse, and Tara-Khan’s spirits fell as he realized just how futile would be his struggle to stay alive. He would be extraordinarily fortunate just to live through a single night.

“You are wasting time,” he growled to himself as he made his way down the steps, his feet crunching on ice and snow, steam swirling from his nostrils.
 

Looking about, he was surprised that a number of robed ones lay among the warriors. It was difficult for him to imagine what transgression could have landed them here, but their misfortune was to his benefit. Kneeling beside the nearest one, he reached out, then paused as he momentarily overcome by a sense of guilt. What he was about to do, robbing the dead of what little dignity remained to them, was a grievous sacrilege, but he had no choice. “Forgive me,” he whispered.
 

Taking the short sword, he used it to hammer and chip the ice from the body so he could liberate the robe. He did the same to four other bodies that were not too badly entombed in ice, begging forgiveness of each of the dead.
 

After some consideration, he reluctantly removed his metal armor. It likely would do him little good, and the metal was already so cold that it was drawing heat from his body.
 

Shaking out the robes, sending ice crystals scattering in the lackluster breeze, he draped four of them over the black leatherite he still wore, making sure the black robe of an armorer was on the outside to draw as much warmth as possible from the sun. The fifth robe, also black, he folded a few times before draping around his head and neck, pulling it up to cover his mouth and nose. Thus attired, he was entirely covered in a thick wrapping of black fabric from head to ankle. All that remained exposed was his eyes.

He next tried to take some of the leatherite armor from the body of a warrior, but it broke into pieces, made brittle by the cold. Searching other warriors, he finally found one with leatherite that was still useable. The thick material was stiff, but after a few minutes of being exposed to the sun it began to soften and became pliable. Again using his sword, he cut it into pieces that he used to make crude coverings for his feet over his open toed sandals, binding them to his ankles and lower legs with thin strips of cloth from one of the robes. The resulting snow boots were bulky and uncomfortable, but would provide his feet with some small degree of protection.
 

With some surprise, he realized that he was no longer freezing cold. In fact, aside from his feet, he was almost comfortable.

“That will not last,” he muttered as he thought of what to do next. He decided not to bother searching the bodies for anything that might be of use, for those brought here had nothing but the clothes upon their backs. A very few might have weapons, granted them as a mercy by their escorts as Alena-Khan had done, but it was unlikely any would be better than the sword Alena-Khan had left him.

He was startled by a deep grunting sound from somewhere to the west beyond a sea of snow dunes. Some infernal creature must have caught his scent, for it was coming from downwind. His initial reaction was to head off on a tangent in hopes of throwing the beast off his trail. An ice canyon perhaps a quarter league distant might afford an opportunity to escape, but it could just as easily be, literally, a dead end.

Then he realized that if he was to survive, he must have food, which in this wasteland was perhaps the most precious commodity short of fire. And any creature that lived here must have a thick fur he could wear and blubber that he could burn for fuel.

The grunting came again, louder this time.
 

Regretting the decision to remove his armor and the protection it might have provided, Tara-Khan returned to the Kal-Uzmir and climbed the steps to the dais. Fortunately, the steps were on the side opposite the creature’s direction of approach. Unless it was the size of a genoth or could jump high enough to breach the stone railing, in which case the coming battle would be decidedly brief and not in his favor, he would have a height advantage if it tried to mount the steps.

He saw something crest the nearest dune. Covered in thick white fur, it was compact in form with four stout legs that propelled it at an impressive speed. The head was a flattened triangle with two large eyes positioned in the front of its skull and a thick black snout over a wide mouth filled with sharp teeth and a lolling pink tongue.
 

It must have seen him, for it made a series of rapid grunts and picked up its pace, heading right for the Kal-Uzmir. As it began to pass through the field of bodies, which gave him some perspective of its size, he saw that it was perhaps as large as a magthep, and the maw roughly matched the enormous bite marks he’d seen on some of the dead. Bite marks that, as often as not among those Tara-Khan had observed, went cleanly through not only flesh and bone, but leatherite and metal armor, as well.
 

He tightened his grip on the sword, worrying that his hands would soon be too numb to hold onto it properly.

With a final round of grunts, the creature bounded right up to the Kal-Uzmir and leaped toward him, its mouth open wide.
 

Leaning over the edge of the wall, Tara-Khan had to jerk his head back, surprised by how high the thing was able to reach. The teeth snapped shut a hand’s breadth from his face, and the long black claws of the front feet scrabbled for purchase on the slick ice of the railing. It threw its head to and fro, fighting for balance.
 

In that brief moment of opportunity, Tara-Khan lunged forward, stabbing the beast through the neck just under the jaw. His blade sank deep into the creature’s flesh, and with a squeal of pain it whipped itself backward, tearing the sword from Tara-Khan’s grip.
 

“No!” The sword was everything. Without it he had no hope at all of survival. He had no way of knowing how far the beast might run, or even if he had struck a mortal blow. If it fled and he lost its trail, or night fell before he could catch it, he would almost certainly die. He had to get the sword back or all was lost.

Before the thing had even hit the ground, he had vaulted over the railing after it. The beast landed on all fours, its long talons giving it purchase on the sheet of ice. Tara-Khan landed on its back, wrapping his legs about its chest as he drove his talons into the flesh just behind the skull.

The beast threw itself to and fro, growling and squealing as it tried to throw him off, but Tara-Khan held on. Gripping the beast’s flesh hard with one hand, he pulled his other hand free before leaning down, reaching for the handle of the sword. The beast’s struggles grew more intense, and suddenly the thing flipped over on its back. Tara-Khan let out a grunt of his own, the air driven from his lungs as the beast landed on top of him. It rolled, still trying to get at him, and the motion brought the handle of the sword into reach. Tara-Khan wrenched the sword with a savage tug, made all the more powerful by the beast’s own struggles. The blade sliced through flesh and bone, severing the creature’s spine and the main artery that carried blood to its brain.
 

With a final wheeze, it shuddered, then lay still.

Tara-Khan lay there for a moment, trying to catch his breath. At last, the cold seeping through from the ground prompted him to act. Wrestling the carcass to one side, he pulled the sword from the beast’s neck and began to remove the hide.

Later, with the beast’s thick fur draped over his shoulders, he felt better prepared. He had made two makeshift satchels, one loaded with strips of meat and the other with thick chunks of fat that he had carved from the rapidly cooling carcass.
 

Having prepared those meager provisions, he had to decide which way to go. His only options were to the west, where the deep snow drifts formed a white dune sea, and the south, which was a labyrinth of ice. Travel north and east was blocked by sheer ice cliffs and crevasses. He might have been able to forge a path in either of those directions, but there was no point. Salvation, if any was to be had, lay to the south. While it looked to be a more treacherous passage than to the west, he knew already from trudging through the snow near the Kal-Uzmir that making his way through the deep snow drifts would have been difficult, if not impossible.

“South it is, then.”
 

With that, he set off at a brisk pace, both to stay warm through exertion and to put as much distance as possible between himself and the remains of the butchered creature. He knew nothing of what lived here in the far northern wastes, but he wasn’t about to take the chance that it was the only predator in the vicinity. The scent of blood would draw more.

His fears were justified when he had gone half a league into the forest of ice. He stopped and listened as a piercing cry arose from behind him. Another cry came, then another. Then a multitude of the eerie animal voices reached into the sky.

With a shiver of fear, Tara-Khan headed deeper into the ice, moving as fast as he could.
 

***

Hours passed as he haltingly made his way south. He had to climb over staggered chunks of ice, leap over chasms that disappeared into black depths, and navigate across flat stretches that were the most treacherous of all. The first such ice meadow, as he had originally thought of it, looked harmless enough. Only when he was halfway across and it collapsed under him did he realize the truth: these were thin domes of ice over more chasms. He managed to throw himself back far enough to take hold of thicker ice with his talons and drag himself away from the yawning abyss. After that, he skirted around anything that looked like it might be easily traversed.
 

While he had seen no signs of pursuing predators, he had not been able to shake the sensation that something was following him. He had even taken pains to carefully double back in hopes of flushing out whatever it was, but the only prints he found in the snow were his own. The feeling grew more intense as time wore on. He knew he was probably only being paranoid, but he also had learned as a disciple in the temple to trust his instincts. The body and subconscious mind often had a way of alerting one to danger that the conscious mind could not see. But he found nothing but ice and snow.

Stopping to rest after surmounting a particularly treacherous hill of ice, Tara-Khan knelt down and began to gnaw on a strip of meat. With the satchels next to his body under the robes and thick hide, the meat wasn’t exactly warm, but at least it wasn’t frozen.
 

His feet, however, were a different story. He could no longer feel his toes at all, and the only sensation he had up to his ankles was an unpleasant tingling. His hands were not as bad, for he could keep them under the robes when he wasn’t scrabbling up a sheet of ice, but they, too, were beginning to suffer.

If that is the worst you must endure
, he chided himself with a wry grin,
you have no cause for complaint
. Scooping up a small handful of ice, he sucked the crystals into his mouth to melt it before swallowing the frigid water. He took some more to try and quench his thirst, but that was all he could manage. He shivered as the cold water hit his stomach.

With a groan, he got to his feet. He caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye, a dark shape atop the ridge of ice just to his right. Looking more closely, he saw that nothing was there. He watched for a moment to make sure, but nothing moved but a few flakes of snow displaced by a freshening wind.

With a frown, he looked at the sky to the south where a line of white clouds had begun to turn dark gray. He climbed higher so he could get a clearer view, and hissed at the sight that greeted him. The clouds he had seen below were just the tops of a tremendous storm front that spanned the entire horizon. It was impossible to make out where the sky met with the ground, so heavy was the snowfall. Jagged spikes of lightning raced through the clouds, and he heard the first faint peals of distant thunder.

Then he heard something else above the wind: snarling howls and frenzied yipping, coming from along the trail he had left behind him. Looking down from his vantage point, he saw a pack of mottled white and gray shapes darting across the snow and ice, sniffing at the ground. The leader, a beast half again as large as the others, raised his snout to the air and sniffed, then turned his head toward Tara-Khan. While the thing was too far away to be sure, Tara-Khan had the unsettling sensation that it was staring right at him. Unlike the larger beast Tara-Khan had slain, which had clearly relied on brute force to run down and subdue its prey, he suspected the creature staring at him now was as cunning as it was powerful. One such beast would have been manageable. But a pack was something altogether worse.

With a single yip, the beast called its companions to heel, and together they bounded quickly toward him.