Path of Bones (33 page)

And now she was lying to him again, about so many things.  Just adding to his pain.

We all make sacrifices
, she thought. 
This is his.
  But he hadn’t embarked on this path willingly: he’d been chosen by the Veil, chosen to suffer. 

Tell him
, she told herself. 
Tell him now.  If you wait you’ll only make it worse.

She watched him as they trudged through the dust and climbed shelves of rock and shale.  They were both drenched in sweat, and the vile wind blasted desert heat against their bodies.  Everything was dark red beneath the shadowed clouds, the color of bloody meat. 

This isn’t up to you.  You have to come clean.  The Veil chose him, not you.  It bonded him to you, and it did so for a purpose.  Kath is here for a reason.

Ijanna took a deep breath and wondered how she was going to keep him from killing Malath on sight.  All he knew was that some of her old allies happened to be close by – she hadn’t told him who they were, and he hadn’t asked.

She smelled the heat of the wind.  It was difficult to gauge what time of day it was due to the thick canopy of clouds.  The two of them seemed to walk beneath a sea of boiling shadows.

Ijanna looked at Kath.  Her magic had healed his wounds, which bound him even closer to her.  The scars on the outside were gone, but she knew the wounds on his soul grew deeper every day. 

Tell him.  Now, before it’s too late.

She stopped, and after a moment he noticed and turned to face her.  His wind-tussled hair was damp with sweat and sticky with dust and grit, and his wide and stony face was set with concern.

“Are you all right?” he asked.  She knew it was the Veil that compelled him to serve, the Veil that had bound him to her, but all it had really done was intensify what he already felt inside.  One of the reasons their Veilcrafted bond was so strong was because he felt indebted to her for saving his life, and even with everything that had happened, deep down he still wanted to protect her.  He believed in her, even if he didn’t believe in what she was doing.  “Ijanna?”

She looked at him, and though her mouth moved to speak no words came out.

I can’t.

“
I’m fine,” she said.  “I just need to catch my breath.”

Kath watched her for a moment, then nodded. 

“Come on,” he said.  “We should keep moving, and catch up with these friends of yours.”

They carried on in near silence, the journey eerily reminiscent of the first stretch of their trek out of Ebonmark.  The hard and uneven ground made the going rough, and soon Ijanna’s ankles burned with pain.  Fatigue washed through her body in waves.  Sometimes she felt like she couldn’t take another step, but stopping wasn’t an option.  It never had been.

That night they found shelter from the driving wind and lay down to rest.  Ijanna’s thoughts were filled with memories of Kath’s family, and of her son.  When she slept her dreams were filled with the voices of the unquiet dead.  Even in sleep Ijanna couldn’t rest.

Forty-Two

On the morning of the third day Kath broke the silence with the dreaded question.

“So who are these allies of yours?” he asked.

Ijanna had barely slept.  Inky clouds spilled across the sky, and the air was dank and still and smelled of burned meat.  The ground was so black their tiny cooking fire seemed to float on an oil sea.  Kath cooked a can of beans in an iron pot over the low flames.

“Some people I met a long time ago,” Ijanna said stiffly.  Sweat pasted her dirty blonde hair to her face.  She sat up, aching, and slowly donned her armor.  She had a feeling she’d need it that day, and it wasn’t a good feeling. 

“
That’s…vague,” Kath said.  He wasn’t looking at her, just stirring the beans and working a shred of jerky out of his pack. 

Ijanna swallowed.  She didn’t want to do this, not now.  If only she could avoid broaching the subject for another day…she just needed time to think about what she wanted to say to him, how she wanted to tell him…

Do we really need them?
she wondered. 
Will the Red Hand help, or just make things worse? 
She already knew the answer, even if she didn’t want to admit it.  Gilder had told her about the Jlantrian mercenaries on her trail, and she knew now that one of them was the man who’d put a blade in her back the night she’d stolen the
thar’koon
.  The night she’d met Kath.

“
They’re Bloodspeakers,” she said. 

Kath looked at her with fear and surprise.

“All of them?”

“
All of them.”

“
How many?” he asked.

“
I’m not sure,” she said.  “Probably a dozen.”

Kath watched her for a moment, calculating, then handed her a bowl of beans. 

“A dozen…” he repeated.

“
Maybe more.  I’m really not sure.”

Kath nodded.  He set his bowl down.  It seemed he was no longer hungry. 

“So they’re…Bloodspeakers.  Who just wander around the Bonelands.”  The look he gave her was stern, and full of anger.  “Something your friends do for fun?”

“
Kath…listen…the people we’re meeting are part of a larger group called the Red Hand.  They…”

His eyes went wide, and before Ijanna could react he jumped to his feet and took both of her arms in his powerful hands.  His grip was frighteningly strong.  He was a giant compared to her, easily a foot-and-a-half taller than she was and twice as wide, and when she looked up into his face she saw a terrifying mixture of fear and rage.

“That’s the group led by Malath Zayne!” he said.  “You’re an ally of Malath?”

Ijanna pulled away. 

“We’ve met,” she said.  “He saved my life, and I saved his.  If not for him I wouldn’t have survived the death camps.”

“
If not for him my mother would still be alive!” Kath shouted, his voice echoing loud across the wastes.  He turned his back to her.  For a moment he just stood there, his broad shoulders shaking.  He wept quietly.  When Kath spoke again his voice was weak.  “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” he asked.  “You were just going to let me walk in there blind.”

“
Kath…” she said.  Her chest ached.  “I’m sorry.  I
was
going to tell you…I just couldn’t find a way…”  He was still as a stone.  “We need their help,” she said.  “
I
need their help.”

“
And what about me?” he asked.  “Aren’t I here to help you?”  He turned and faced her, and her heart sank.  His eyes looked hollow, and it seemed all the life had been leeched from his body.  Sand-stained tears ran down his cheeks.  “Isn’t that what the Veil chose me for?  Isn’t that why my…family had to die…?” 

Kath sank to his knees, overcome by grief.  Ijanna went to him and put her hands on his shoulder, and when she was sure he wasn’t going to push her away she took him in her arms. 

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “Kath, I’m so sorry.  I never meant for any of this to happen.”  Kath cried uncontrollably in violent bursts.  “I don’t know why the Veil chose you,” she said, “but it
did. 
It chose you for something.  It has some reason, something you have to do.”  She drew a shuddering breath.  “But if I could take it back I would,” she said.  “I swear it.”

She said nothing more, just held him.  Desert wind peeled at their bodies, but she stayed there, standing with his head against her chest as he wept.  Her body ached with fatigue and sorrow, but she wasn’t about to let him go.

They resumed their trek some time later.  Kath was quiet, his face grim.  He’d stopped crying but remained sullen and distant.

“I want to kill him,” he said after they’d walked for a while.  They passed the skeletons of black trees and brackish pools of boiling tar. 

“
I know,” she said.

“
Did you plan this?” he asked.  “To meet with them?”

“
No,” she said.  “But now that I know they’re here I have no intention of turning down their help.  They’re no friends of the Chul, and I’m hoping they’ve already made contact with Kala.  They might be able to sway her to my cause…”

“
Kala?” he asked.  “The Skullborn?”

“
Yes,” Ijanna said.  She hesitated, but then decided there was no point in holding back the truth.  “Kala Azaean.”

Kath didn’t say anything, but she practically felt his shoulders slump.

They stepped slow through the shifting sands.  The dry wind whipped around them.  Ijanna felt hollow inside. 

“
I don’t understand,” Kath said.  His voice was just barely loud enough for her to hear him.  He walked a good ten paces behind her and didn’t take his eyes off the ground.  His axe was slung across his back, and his skin was so stained with desert grime he could have been a part of the landscape.  “Why are we here?  So
you
can live?  Is your life worth more than Julei’s?”

Ijanna clenched her teeth.  She wouldn’t be angry with him, not after all he’d been through. 

“I’ve lost just as much as you have,” she said.  She kept walking, and didn’t look back.  “This is bigger than you or me.  I’m not just searching for the Skullborn so I can save my own skin.  If I’m going to sacrifice myself I need to make sure it’s the right thing to do, and in spite of what the mystics of Allaj Mohrter believed
I
need to find out more.  I need to make sure my death won’t be in vain.”  She bit back tears.  “Ever since I was a little girl they told me I was supposed to die so others can live, and that knowledge has hung over me my entire life.  If I’m supposed to die, I’m going to make damn sure there are no other options.”  She stopped, turned and faced him.  “But if you don’t think I’d take things back and sacrifice myself if it meant your family and my son could still be alive…then you don’t know me at all, Kath.”

Kath stared at her. 

“You said I’d die if I don’t help you,” he said.  “What do I have to live for, Ijanna?  Why should I even bother to carry on?  I said I wanted to help…and maybe I still do…or maybe it’s just the Veil
telling
me to help you.”  He shook his head.  “None of this seems real.  They’re gone…Goddess, my sisters…they never hurt anyone…”

His eyes locked on the horizon.  He seemed so lost, so weak.

“I should have told you who Gilder and his men were the moment I knew,” she said.  “I’m sorry.  But you need to understand something, Kath, and I know this will be hard for you to accept – Malath didn’t mean for your mother to die.”  Kath’s gaze sharpened, and his jaw clenched.  “I don’t believe he’s capable of that sort of malice.  I know that doesn’t make things any easier, but…”

“
No,” he said quietly.  “It doesn’t.”  He took a deep breath.  “I can’t promise I won’t try to kill him,” he said.  “Even if it means I’ll die.”

“
Kath, listen to me…I didn’t choose for the Veil to bond you to me. 
It
picked you, and I have to believe it had a reason.”

“
Like what?” he croaked. 

“
I don’t know,” she said.  “And that’s the truth.  But you’re as much a part of this as I am.  Of all of the hundreds of people the Veil could have chosen to bond me to, it chose
you.” 
She took a breath.  “It chose you.  Just like it chose me.”  Kath watched her for a moment, then nodded grimly.  “It looks like neither one of us has a choice,” she said, and she turned and started walking.  After a moment she heard him follow. 

Forty-Three

They crossed stone shelves and fields of battered rock.  The landscape grew more treacherous.  Open plains of ruddy dirt gradually turned to narrow canyons, and tall ledges dropped into perilous ravines.  Ijanna’s eyes were sore from peering through the murky light and shifting dark mists.  A ruined city sprawled across miles of desert beyond the distant spires.  

Jarringly cold ebon vapors swept over her and Kath, a stark contrast to the dull Galladorian heat, and before long their vision was almost entirely obscured by brume the color of grave soil.  Kath held his axe ready, and Ijanna drew the
thar’koon
.   She felt presences in the maze of smoke and sand. 

“
Are you okay?” Kath asked.

“
It’s just fog,” Ijanna said, trying to sound confident and knowing she was doing a terrible job of it.

“
If you say so,” he said with a wry laugh.

They slowed their pace.  Kath occasionally turned to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them from behind. 

“This is ridiculous,” Kath said.  “We’re not going to make any headway in this.”

“
I agree,” she said.  “It’s unnatural.  I can disperse it, but it will take time.  The last thing we want is to tumble into a hole because we can’t see two feet ahead of us.”