Neversfall (31 page)

“Lie,” Guk said. Formian voices did not lilt when inquisitive and so Taennen did not respond for the span of several heartbeats, finally identifying the words as a question.

“Yes. Fool him into telling us how many more of them there are, whether there are any secret tunnels we can use, and anything else we need to know,” Taennen said.

“We will not lie,” Guk said as he moved toward the Chondathan, who gasped when he saw the largest formian. Guk stared hard at the man, his head twitching slightly. “Ask him your questions.”

Taennen eyed the big formian but stood over the Chondathan, lowering his voice and scowling as best he could. “How many more of you are underground?”

“To the hells with you, Maquar,” Rhalov said.

“Approximately forty,” Guk said. Rhalov’s eyes went wide staring at the formian.

Uncertain what was happening, Taennen continued. “Why are you here?”

Rhalov said nothing, but Guk spoke. “For coin.” The Chondathan stared at Guk, his lips pursed, his brow furrowed.

“Why are the Chondathans here?” Taennen asked. Again, Guk spoke when the human would not, saying, “For coin.”

Taennen growled at the answer, upset with himself for being so vague, and angry at the stubborn prisoner.

“Is there a way to use the tunnels to enter Neversfall?” Taennen asked, turning to face Guk in anticipation of the response.

“Yes,” Guk said, eliciting a moan from Rhalov. “Where? How?” Taennen said.

Before Guk could respond, Rhalov did. “I’ll speak! Just get it out of my head!”

“Speak,” Guk said, though Taennen was uncertain whether he had stopped his magical reading.

“Enter the tunnel where you just exited. Take the second tunnel left, the first right and the second left again. You’ll see a ladder built into the rock,” Rhalov said.

“Is it guarded?” Taennen asked.

Rhalov nodded. Taennen paced, running his fingers through his dark hair.

“Who is in charge? Bascou?” Taennen asked.

The Chondathan grinned and shook his head. “You know who.”

Taennen lashed out and slapped the man’s face. He already knew the answer but could not bear to hear the name aloud. His suspicions confirmed, he turned from the prisoner and stared at the ground.

“You are finished with him,” Guk said.

“Yes. We’ll tie him up and come back later…” Taennen started to say but was cut short as a glow caught his attention.

He turned to see what looked like the bars on a prison cell, horizontal lines crossing verticals, beams of blue light floating before Rhalov. The strange, lighted lattice floated forward, pressing slowly into the Chondathan, who loosed a high-pitched scream as his torso was seared by the strange force. A sound like meat sizzling on a skillet and the rough scraping of a shovel filled his ears. Rhalov’s scream was cut off as the bars faded from existence on the far side of his body and he slumped to the ground.

“For all the One,” Taennen said, turning from the sight of the man’s chest splayed open and the smell of burnt flesh.

“You did that?” Taennen said, facing Guk.

“He defied order. Be careful that you do not,” Guk said with no hint of threat in his voice.

Taennen wanted to scream, to denounce what the formian had done, but he knew it would do little good. While he objected to the deed, he was not in a position to argue. His mind turned to his next task, and there was a pressing matter still to attend. He wondered what part of himself he had lost that might have objected more strongly. Could he get it back?

“You helped me get the information I needed. Now what? We were even, and now I am in your debt again,” Taennen said.

“You will need help at the fortress,” Guk said.

Taennen squinted but agreed.

“His answers, and our help in taking the keep. That we offer,” the formian replied. “And what price do I pay?”

“We lost many of our kind and all of our workers. We need workers. We cannot return with fewer than we had when we left,” Guk said.

“I can’t give you back your prisoners. They’re not slaves. They’ll be freed,” Taennen said, taking a step backward. “Not them,” Guk said.

Taennen cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. After a few moments he understood what the formian was suggesting. The idea made him sick at first. But the idea of not seeing justice done broke his heart. He wanted an end to all the wrongdoing at Neversfall.

“Fine. Any of the invaders we capture…” he said, unable to finish the sentence. Part of Taennen was disgusted with himself, another part proud for making a hard decision that he knew was the right one. The decision had not been as hard as he imagined. That bothered him.

“There are others near,” Guk said.

“Chondathans? Where, in the woods?” Taennen asked.

“Not the invaders,” Guk replied.

“Who?” Taennen asked.

“Many like you and the others,” Guk said.

“Maquar and Durpari?” Taennen said.

Guk affirmed, and the formian ranks began to move forward again. Taennen restrained himself from dashing ahead to see the others, to find out what had happened. Lucha’s light had become brighter, and though the formians moved quietly, even they could not avoid rustling through the underbrush. He wondered how they had ever surprised the Chondathans who had been chasing him. So it came as no surprise when he heard human voices shout in warning from the west, closer to the edge of the forest.

“Peace,” Taennen said.

The formians stopped their shuffling, and the woods soaked up every bit of sound. Silence reigned for several moments before a single voice called out.

“Taennen?”

It was Adeenya. Taennen smiled and pushed past the formians to step into a less crowded patch of the forest: Gasps from the darkness greeted him a mere moment before several Maquar ran to him, cheering in low voices. Joy was in the air, but the seasoned warriors knew quiet was a necessary tool. Taennen greeted his friends with hugs and claps on shoulders.

After exchanging greetings, the formians stepped out of the trees just enough to be seen by the humans. The Maquar and Durpari gasped and cursed, lifting their weapons.

“No!” Taennen said, his arms high. “They want to help.”

“Help what?” a Durpari woman asked. “Help us retake Neversfall,” Taennen said in a low voice.

Before the gathered humans could respond, Adeenya stepped out of the crowd. Taennen smiled to see her again. Her smile was no smaller than his, though it fled her face as she turned to face her makeshift army.

“He is right. We will retake Neversfall. We must. Go, rest,” she said, pointing to a nearby clearing.

As the soldiers grumbled and walked away, Taennen nodded to Guk, whose people followed him in the opposite direction several paces away. The two officers stood in silence a few moments before Adeenya recounted her escape, never mentioning who had captured her. Taennen shared his own, and Adeenya fumed at the news of the weapons smuggling.

“Taennen,” she said, “I didn’t murder Marlke. I tried to stop him. I stabbed him after he attacked me, but he could have been healed—would have been healed. Jhoqo let him die. He’s mad, Taennen. He—”

“I know. I should have seen it,” Taennen said.

Adeenya nodded but said nothing further on the matter. “So how are we going to take Neversfall?” “I know the way in,” he replied.

“That will help,” she said, “but our men are disillusioned, wounded, and hungry.”

“It’s amazing what a lack of choice can do, and we don’t have one,” he said.

She nodded and glanced toward the formians. “Are they really helping?”

He followed her gaze to the creatures and said, “Yes.”

She said nothing for a few heartbeats, but then asked, “Why would they help, and why would we trust them?”

“We trust them for the same reason we take the fortress,” he said. “We have no choice.”

She ceded the point but asked again, “But why are they going to help?”

“For payment. The same reason anyone does anything,” he said.

She glanced back at the formians again and said, “They wanted coin?”

“Payment doesn’t always mean gold or silver,” Taennen replied.

Before Adeenya could respond, Taennen walked toward the soldiers in the clearing. Jhoqo had always said that a good soldier knows when a command is a poor one, be it unjust or simply mad. Taennen was about to give an insane command, and he could only hope that his soldiers were good and that things weren’t as simple as he had always believed them to be. The world had come to look quite different in the last couple of days. Maybe he was seeing things that Jhoqo could not.

“Please, everyone, listen to me,” Taennen said, waving for the displaced people to gather around him. Blood spattered

his flesh and his armor, his face was worn and haggard.

“Maquar, we have been betrayed,” Taennen started. “No, not just us. Everyone who hails from the South. Sadly, that betrayal came from within our ranks.”

The Maquar and Durpari stood silent, though the former prisoners began to shout at Taennen, having picked him out as the person in charge they hoped would help them.

“Listen, please, all of you,” Taennen said. “I know you want to go home. I know you are beside yourselves wondering why your former slavers are standing only paces away,” he said, indicating the formians still gathered nearby.

“My fellow soldiers, I know your minds are spinning right now. Mine is too. Though I was not with you in your battle against the Chondathans, the full weight of Jhoqo’s betrayal sits on my heart as well,” he said.

The Maquar lowered their heads in unison, a sign of respect to the relationship between Jhoqo and Taennen.

Taennen spoke again, an orator emerging from him out there in the wilderness. “Beneath Neversfall are forces that would break the laws we hold dear, and that some of us have sworn to defend. Weapons are being smuggled to feed the war machine that is Mulhorand. This citadel will make more coin in a month than most chakas make in a year. Illegal coin! Blood coin! Coin pried from the hands of the dead citizens of the next country that the vicious Mulhorandi target. This must be stopped.”

The former captives seemed unmoved, standing huddled together away from the soldiers, separating themselves as though some caste system were in place. Who could blame them for not wanting to get involved? This was not their affair. They had sworn no oaths, they were not being paid. Their faces showed only the desire to remain free, to return

to their homes and the lives they had known before being taken by the formians.

Taennen noticed the disinterest from the citizens as well and turned to address them. “I am sorry you have suffered. Some of you have been away from your homes for a long, long time. Little would please me more than to take each of you to your homes right now and know that you would never have to return to this place,” he said, pausing before continuing.

“But I can’t do that. The truth is that the people in that fortress must be stopped. Many, many more people will die if they are not. The Adama tells us that we are all connected, that our goal should be the good of all things because all things are part of us and we are part of them.

“Good trade benefits everyone, but what the warmongers behind this are doing here does not. The victims of the Mulhorandi will not benefit, the citizens of the South who devote themselves to the laws we live by will not benefit.”

The former captives murmured among themselves but seemed largely unmoved. Taennen moved closer to them. “And you and those you love will not benefit. You may be harmed by this action,” Taennen said.

“How? The Mulhorandi don’t attack my homeland,” said a short man in shabby clothes.

“Not yet,” Taennen said. “But these weapons will allow them to expand their borders farther, to extend their reach into lands that may not have interested them previously. Perhaps they will come after your home next. When they conquer those around them, what will stop their appetite for more war and more land?”

The former captives muttered amongst themselves. After a few moments, one of them stepped forward and spoke.

“We’re not fighters, sir. What are we supposed to do? We

just want to go home to our families. For some of us, it’s been a very long time.”

Taennen nodded. “I know, my friends. If I saw a choice, I would latch onto it, but I do not,” he said. “Friends, please trust me. You do not want to be alone here in the wilds of Aerilpar,” Taennen said. “There are far worse things in these woods than you have encountered before.”

Jhoqo stared at the corpse of Bascou laid before him in his command building. He dismissed the Chondathan soldiers who had brought the body to him, and then crumpled into a chair. Bascou’s thick cheeks hung from his face like sacks of emptied wheat. His wounds still dribbled, sprinkling the floor with red. Jhoqo had barely known the man and would not miss him.

He was a cursed darkblade. Damn all the Chondathans to the Hells, he thought. He would trade the whole lot of them for ten Maquar or even Durpari. He sighed and let his muscles relax, slumping in the chair.

The Chondathans were unimportant, but the people they represented were not. The men and women who had hired the mercenaries knew what needed to be done, and they gave Jhoqo the means to do it. So why couldn’t his own soldiers understand? Couldn’t they see the degradation of Southern ways all around them?

Fair and open trade was being stifled by petty laws and politics. The very idea of declaring trade with another country to be illegal was absurd, even offensive, to anyone who loved the South and the ways of the Adama. The citizens he was working with understood that, and he knew that

he would have to walk away from his entire career. For the South, he would do that.

Jhoqo stood and took a deep breath. So be it, he thought and walked out the door, leaving the lifeless Bascou behind him. He called out to the Chondathan guard who was his shadow, “Go and fetch me your second in command.”

The guard, with his downy beard, was one of the youngest the Chondathans had brought. He did not move, though his eyes went straight to the ground.

“Go!” Jhoqo barked.