River of Spears (Kingdom's Forge Book 0) (6 page)

Both Riders remained covered head to toe in wrappings, though their clothing was brown and tan and green now instead of black and scarlet. Only their eyes and fingers were exposed. After seeing the flames leap from their hands he understood why they wouldn’t want anything flammable there. Jensen wore his usual three armbands over his arm and Nico one.

Neither offered a handclasp, and Dain wasn’t offended.
Probably worried about damaging their delicate instruments of death.

Dain hadn’t seen a Rider this close since meeting Lupal and Nico the day after their arrival and he was struck again by their small stature. Jensen, the larger of the two would still be sixty pounds lighter than himself and half a foot shorter.

“Nico is now under your care. Keep him safe until we return to the river. He and Jensen are our best chance at surviving this,” Balerion said.

“How’s this going to work if he can’t speak? It’s going to be difficult to protect someone who can’t understand me.”

“I understand you just fine, paladin. And I just choose not to speak.”

The voice sounded strange—oddly false—and higher in pitch than Dain had expected. Common must not have been the Riders’ native language.

“Follow Dain back to his adobe and rest, Nico,” Jensen said in the same odd tone.

Balerion turned to Dain. “For now you and your men are excluded from all other duties. Stay in one of the adobes adjacent to this one. The Tyberons might discover that two Riders remain. They will come for them. Be sure you are ready.”

The grass was knee-high when they made their break for freedom.

Hardly anyone rode—the spearmen had struck the night before and killed all but a handful of the horses. The remaining horses had been confiscated to draw the supply wagons and for a select few outriders. So they walked. They walked for a day and a night before stopping, and the sea of grass rose another two inches. Balerion signaled for the halt and, after a full day of marching, Dain, Tindall, and the others dropped.

No one spoke. Several of the men rubbed their feet and legs. Though his feet may not have agreed, Dain preferred to walk at this point. Those riding were assigned to the outside edges and were the most likely to draw Tyberon spears first. He and the remnants of the patrol were in the army’s center. Nico was too precious to risk at the outer edge. The Pyre Rider was to be kept safe, like a swaddling babe in the patrol’s arms.

“Water,” Dain said. “Be sure you drink enough water or you’ll cramp. There’s salt in the dried pork. Take your day’s ration now, along with the water.”

“Won’t that remove the water from your body?” Tindall asked.

“No, the salt will trap fluids in your stomach.”

“But what about—”

“He’s right,” Nico interrupted in that strange voice of his. “The salt is good for you.” It was the first time he’d spoken since the meeting with Balerion. The Pyre Rider had stayed to himself, well away from the others, as they’d waited to start out. He too rubbed at his small feet now.

“Everything alright here?” Balerion asked as he approached, maneuvering his horse among them.

“All good here,” Dain said. “Any idea how close we are?”

“No. There’s open burn ahead, though. On the far horizon, a patch of black and gray. The shamen haven’t started regrowing it yet. We might be able to outrun them and break into the clear.”

“Will it be so easy?” Tindall asked, a note of hope in his voice.

Balerion leveled his eyes at Dain. The look said much.
If it seems easy, it’s a trap. And one we have no choice but to step into.

Without another word, the big merc moved to the next group of men.

That night, the killing began. Tyberon spears flew from all around the camp. Not every spear hit a man but, compacted as the camp was, one in three did.

There could be neither rest nor mercy. For any of them to survive they had to travel fast, and the wounded would only slow them down. In the morning, a hundred men were left behind, and when the army was but a mile away they heard their screams as the Tyberons swept in and took them.

By midday they arrived at Balerion’s black patch only to find a fine green mat covering it. Step by step it grew taller until it reached knee height when they finally camped.

The sun set and the culling began anew. For three days it continued, the losses greater each day as more spears rained down.

Less than two hundred mercenaries remained when the Tyberons overwhelmed them. The hate-filled larks and cranes outnumbered the remnants of the Esterian army five to one. Like a great, rolling wave of spears and fury they swept over the broken expedition. Exhausted after days without sleep and miles of marching on low rations, many of the soldiers simply dropped their weapons in despair and collapsed.

Several mercs placed their swords down, hilt first, and then fell on their own blades. They did it without screams, without ceremony. One such man stood near Dain, his lips moving in a muted prayer. Little could be heard over the charging Tyberons’ war cries. The merc’s eyes closed. The blade slid into his body and out through his back. He smiled and, among the chaos, seemed to find peace in his last moments.

Balerion fell off to Dain’s left. Fighting like a man possessed and refusing to yield, a half-dozen Tyberons perished on his sweeping halberd before he died.

For his own part, Dain knew when he was beaten. He placed his own sword, blade first, into the ground and knelt before it.

He wasn’t sure what to expect. The Tyberons were a fierce people and the expedition had burned one of their cities and ravaged its people.

We will all be put to death
.

There had been too much death already. He’d seen the Tyberon children piled up like cordwood behind one of their adobes, their silken hair plastered to their skulls by dried blood, their faces a mask of flies. His comrades had done that. That and worse.

He too was covered in the blood of the innocent. He had led the charge that broke the enemy. He studied his empty palms and waited for death.

It is good that it will end this way,
he thought.
At least the nightmares will be over.

Dain began praying to the Creator. Not for salvation—he didn’t deserve it, he couldn’t expect it—instead he asked for the Light’s forgiveness.

In life, he’d largely been a failure. His honor was gone. His ancestors would disown him in the next world as surely as his father and mother had disowned him in this one. But for that act, the sin he had committed to draw his father’s scorn, Dain refused to ask forgiveness. He wasn’t ashamed of it then. He wasn’t ashamed of it now. It was for his actions since, old offenses and new, that he pleaded for the Creator’s mercy.

A Tyberon warrior approached and towered before him. The man’s white feathers rattled. The broad tattoo of a crane, wings spread wide, decorated his chest. The rest of his body was painted white from the waist up. Only his eyes, black and full of rage, were bare.

Dain looked at him, forcing himself to meet those eyes. He deserved every bit of that boiling hate. He let it scourge his soul.

The warrior lifted his spear, and Dain fell into darkness.

CHAPTER FOUR

N
o Esterian was spared.

To a man they were hunted and executed. A few unlucky mercenaries who resembled Esterians, those well-dressed or simply shorter than average, died along with them.

The survivors, now less than a hundred, were bound into pairs by shackles and chains and marched away. There had been an odd number of mercenaries, and when the Tyberons couldn’t find anyone to match the last man to, they speared and killed him.

Brutal but efficient
, Dain thought. While unconscious, he’d dreamt of his land by the mountains and of building a home there. He’d awoken with newfound resolve to escape and return to the mountains—but first, to live.

He ended up with Nico. Surprisingly they had let the Pyre Rider live. Jensen, the other Rider, had also survived. He was chained to Wilhem, one of Balerion’s bodyguards, the only one who hadn’t joined their leader in death. In addition to the long chains at their wrists, their captors placed a set of restricting clamps over Nico and Jensen’s hands. If the Pyre Riders used their powers the clamp would trap the heat and melt their own flesh.

Dain they didn’t bother with. Either they hadn’t seen him fight or they knew he couldn’t project the Light. In any event, his abilities were internal; the clamps would have had little or no effect on him. He resolved to keep the Light to himself. If the Tyberons thought they couldn’t control it, he’d likely end up with a spear in the gut. And Nico besides.

He wasn’t sure why they allowed the spellcasters to live.
Ransom,
he thought
, that would be the only possible reason.
Rumor held that Pyre Riders would ransom one of their own with their bodyweight in gold. Still, he wasn’t altogether sure the Tyberons cared for gold.

Trying to speak with their captors was pointless. The savages traveled with little or no words, using hand signals to communicate with each other. And they had their own way of giving commands to their captives.

The guards touched spears to a prisoner then pointed where they wanted them to go. Anyone who failed to catch on or who failed to move quick enough took a spear through the chest, as did their partner. Dain and Nico learned fast.

At first, Dain feared that the smaller man couldn’t possibly keep up, but Nico surprised him. Despite taking almost two steps for every one of his, the Pyre Rider fell into a steady rhythm and matched his pace.

Though chained together, he learned little of Nico. They didn’t speak. None of the mercenaries did. Attempts to talk above a low whisper were punished with a swift and firm beating.

For days they plodded on. The grass reached high enough that only a small window of sky and a few silver-bellied clouds could be seen during the day. Only at night, when the glimmering stars came out, did the monotony lift a little.

Dain thought he’d go mad.
Did the grass go on forever?
The general direction of travel was west and south, he knew that from the sun, but they turned at seemingly random times, swerving around unseen obstacles ahead. Whenever this happened the Tyberons took it in stride, showing no signs of concern.

On the eighth day, he and Nico were marching near the front and they caught a glimpse of the army’s guide—an older man with crane feathers. The crane walked with arms outstretched and his eyes shut as if drawn onward by an invisible force that he alone felt. Dain wondered if they were lost.

That would be foolish.
Surely the Tyberons could navigate their own grasslands. They had found the patrols and then vanished easy enough. Obviously they had some means of sensing direction, but his only clue into what that might be was the white-feathered old man.

What is he following?

By midday the Tyberons and captive mercs emerged into a clearing at the edge of a small pond. Ducks, geese, cranes, and other waterfowl watched them, and a pair of shaggy bison stood in the pond’s muddy edge opposite the traveling army.

It was the only break from the green Dain had seen in days. He took a deep breath and heard Nico do the same. Though less than a hundred feet wide, the pond seemed open and vast after the long march.

After drinking their fill, the Tyberons led them away from the water. Dain and Nico again fell in near the front. Arriving at this pool was no accident. Somehow, the lead warrior had guided them here. And if the Tyberons could navigate the grass, Dain wanted to see if he could learn how. This time it was a different man—one he recognized as the crane warrior who had captured him—leading the group. He too walked with outstretched arms in the same manner as the previous guide.

If two can do this, perhaps all of the cranes can—or even all Tyberons,
Dain thought.

For much of the time, the Tyberons seemed to fear nothing. They were the grassland’s masters. But each night they posted dozens of guards. Strangely, the guards didn’t look at their prisoners often, but rather faced the grass around the camp. It seemed they were more afraid of what lurked there than the captured mercs.

“What do you think they watch for?” Nico whispered the night after they left the pond.

“I’m not sure. Whatever it is scares them a great deal. Notice how they keep their spears up at all times?”

“I saw one of them putting some sort of poison, juice from an orange root, on his last night.”

They were silent for a moment while one of their captors walked past.

“You thinking of escape?” Dain murmured when the man had gone.

“Always.”

“There’s nowhere to go. We’d be lost in an hour in all this and then end up starving or dying of thirst or found again. The guards don’t even bother watching us anymore,” Dain said.

“Have you any idea how they find their way through here?”

“No. Do you?”

Nico shrugged his narrow shoulders. “A guess or two. I spoke with Jensen today, when we drank at the pond. There have been four different guides in all. It seems likely any of them, any of the cranes, can do it.”

One of the nearby guards turned toward them. Dain closed his eyes and feigned sleep. The rules against talking were even stricter at night than in the daytime.

Some time later he drifted off.

On the tenth day, Nico fell.

They had stopped for water at another of the shallow, stagnant pools and, less than a mile later, he began to cough. Deep, heaving coughs without end. Hands covering his mouth to stifle the noise, he stumbled on. Oddly, the Tyberons hadn’t complained about the noise yet. They seemed unusually relaxed today, even talking among themselves.

Nico leaned down, vomited, and collapsed.

Dain looked down at him, dumbfounded. This morning he’d seemed fine. Tired, like they all were, but otherwise fine. Had Nico ate or drank something that didn’t agree with him?
The water. There had been some larvae in the water. Had he drank one?

Dain imagined the emotionless spear coming. If Nico fell, they would both die. He placed his hands on the Pyre Rider and tried to sense the problem. He would have to try healing him.

The merc behind Dain, a big, belligerent man called Ox, planted a muddy boot on Nico’s outstretched arm and laughed.

“Look boys, our protector fell. The big, bad Pyre Rider fell,” Ox bellowed, pointing. His partner-in-chains, Kern, a greasy scarecrow of a man, laughed along.

“No! Save us, save us great Rider,” Kern wailed in mock dismay, clutching at his chest.

Dain knew these two—every prisoner did. They’d been trouble from the beginning. The first day after their capture Ox kicked another man’s ankle and shattered it. Unable to keep up, the unlucky man and his partner had fallen back and been speared.

Since then, Dain took care to avoid the pair. But this morning he had been too tired and too lost in thoughts of escape to notice their approach. A mistake, he knew now, and one he needed to correct before Ox killed Nico outright and Dain ended up with a spear in the guts.

“Not so tough without your spells, now are you?” Ox said. He leaned on Nico’s arm.

Nico’s eyes opened. There was pain and anger in them, and he clenched his jaw to remain silent. The guards might allow some talking today, but a scream wouldn’t be tolerated.

Dain shoved the big merc back. He pulled Nico to his feet and placed himself between the Pyre Rider and Ox. With the clamps covering his hands, the little man would be useless in a fight. He stared up at the larger Ox and readied himself.

“Coward,” he said.

“What’d you call me, little man?” Ox asked, sounding almost casual.

Kern stopped laughing. His eyes took on a devilish light.

Only compared to Ox could Dain be considered little. The bigger man outweighed Dain’s two hundred and twenty pounds by another forty or so, and he stood three inches taller than Dain’s six-foot-two.

“You heard me you deaf piece of dung. I said you’re a Light-damned coward.”

Ox clenched a fist of iron and swung.

Dain sidestepped the punch and slugged the bigger man’s ribs. His fist felt like it met a shield, but Ox staggered. Dain retreated a step and hoped Nico was wise enough to stay behind.

He was ready for another punch when the little man surprised him. Instead of falling back, Nico darted forward and kicked Kern’s knee from the side. Dain heard an ugly pop and the greasy man’s leg bent sideways at a painful-looking angle.

Kern yelled, and a nearby guard speared him in the throat. The merc’s screams fell away to a bloody gurgle. In vain he clutched at the wound, but couldn’t control the bleeding.

Ox moved quickly then, no doubt realizing the dire situation he was now in, and reached out to grab at the chain that connected Dain and Nico. He caught it and yanked the pair closer.

Dain didn’t bother trying to pull away. Ox was too strong, and pulling away would just move Nico closer to him and his iron fists. All he had to do was injure one of them and they would fall behind the group and die.

Dain threw a loop in the chain and caught it around Ox’s forearm. He rushed the bigger merc, slipping behind him and jerking the chain—along with the trapped arm—against his chest.

Nico must have understood his intent. The Pyre Rider raced behind Ox in the opposite direction. He crossed his end of chain over Dain’s.

Instead of a trapped arm, Ox’s neck was now inside the loop, drawn tight. The frantic merc thrashed, arm and leg and bucked back, trying to break free. But Dain and Nico each held fast.

At last, Ox’s face went purple. The veins at his neck swelled and bulged. He fell to his knees. Nico stepped in front of him to face the mercenary.

“Not so close,” Dain tried to warn him.

Ox moved then, reaching for the Pyre Rider one last time. He strained forward and grabbed Nico’s shirt. Nico tore at the merc’s hands, but couldn’t free himself. Ox finally wrenched at the shirt, trying to draw Nico closer. He managed only to tear the shirt off instead.

His face an angry purple mask, the mercenary gasped a last breath and fell with a jarring thud to the dirt.

Dain jerked on the chain one final time, crushing Ox’s windpipe to be sure. Wiping sweat from his eyes, he looked at Nico. If the Pyre Rider was injured, if Ox had managed to crush his ankle or knee, they would still be in serious trouble.

I might be able to heal it
. To save himself he would certainly try.

But the little man was whole. During the fight he’d lost his turban, revealing his face.

The rumors claimed that the Pyre Riders were horribly disfigured from their flames. But Nico had a smooth, bald head and no scarring at all. He certainly didn’t look like demon spawn. Freckles dotted his nose and cheeks. His eyes were olive shaped and a dark shade of brown. Tears fell from them.

Odd—I can see no injuries.
Perhaps he is just badly shaken.
Dain checked him over again to make sure.

His eyes stopped at Nico’s chest.

Nico’s shirt had been shredded open by Ox’s grasping fists, and with her free arm she covered a pair of small, round breasts.