Of fire and ash, p.11
Of Fire and Ash, page 11
Gongs had crashed as the sun starting sinking toward the horizon, summoning the villagers down the jungle path to the shore where the temple procession paraded toward the scadtha’s sun-bleached corpse. Arriving first would only have weakened his resolve, left him shivering and unmade and incapable of carrying out his plan, so Rafi had dawdled while the others began their silent march, savoring the warmth of the sun on his skin, the taste of cool mint leaf on his tongue, the scent of the sea.
Now he worried that arriving last might make him look afraid.
You are afraid, his own voice whispered in his head.
Yes, but he didn’t want everyone to know it. Breath stale in his lungs, he gripped his harpoon as he caught up and plunged into the sea of clenched knuckles, set jaws, and bowed shoulders. The atmosphere seethed with quiet resentment, stifled terror, and anger.
Elder Gordu glared at him as he jostled into place beside Torva. After a week recuperating in the jungle, alternately tormented by stinging flies and Iakki’s pranks—sometimes, he wasn’t sure which was worse—Rafi had melted back into village life under cover of a lie about hiking inland to establish trade with a distant Mahque tribe. Two weeks later and Gordu was clearly still suspicious, but Rafi had only held to the lie to shield Torva from the consequences of sheltering him. There would be no living with Gordu once he admitted the truth. Then again, Rafi wouldn’t have to live with him. He would be dead. For real, this time.
Torva set a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
Tears—no, sand, of course, it was sand—stung his eyes.
Gongs crashed again, parting the villagers so the temple procession could flood the ring. Massive stone-eye tigers drew gilded chariots carrying four priests in flowing scarlet robes and ornate gold headpieces. Chains draped from manacles on their wrists and necks, jingling with the rattle of the wheels. Rafi dropped his eyes as the tigers passed, not wanting to be trapped by their gaze. Nadaari soldiers marched behind, five of them, trailed by three devotees in loose orange robes and veils that seemed to float as they danced with blue scarves flying from wrists and elbows, almost like wings or fins or rippling water.
Painful silence suffocated the beach. No noise but the shuffle of feet in the sand; the clank of the priests’ chains; and the deep, snuffling breaths of the tigers. It made Rafi want to shout, just to break it, as the seconds crawled and the shadows lengthened, reaching out from the jungle to claim the shore. The priests at last descended from their chariots to circle the scadtha, and, spears in hand, they began to chant. Not loudly at first. Just a muttered string of incomprehensible words that somehow conjured images in Rafi’s mind nonetheless. Blood. Dripping. Staining the sacrificial waters. And looming above, the cold eyes of the Silent One, lidded in slumber.
Splashing broke the spell, snapping Rafi’s attention to the soldiers wading out into the surf carrying wooden sakes. His stomach tightened. Almost time.
As one, the priests crashed their spears together, and the chanting stopped.
“Judgment rises to claim you, an unholy people,” one of the priests, a gaunt man with mountains for cheekbones and caverns for eyes, intoned. Yellow flecks in his irises marked him as being of Choth descent, one of the first tribes conquered by the Nadaari long ago. “You waver in submission to the Dominion of Murloch. You cling to ancient deities and harbor one who has committed an unthinkable crime—”
“Holy one!” Gordu broke from the crowd and knelt, his muscled bulk straining the beaded vest that proclaimed his status as village elder. Sweat trickled down his blocky face into the gray scruff dusting his chin. “We are not all-seeing like He-Who-Slumbers. The scadtha’s slayer is hidden from us, or we would have—”
The priest cut him off, lip curling in disgust. “I am Cortovah, priest of Murloch. It is in his name that I come to see the sacrificial waters rise and blood for blood paid.”
This was it then. Time.
Rafi tipped his head back to drink in one last salt-tinged breath and locked eyes with Iakki across the ring. Seeing that foreign, fearful expression on the boy’s face felt so wrong, Rafi would do anything to change it. He ignored Sev’s scowl and the reminder of that hidden satchel and the itch in his own feet to run, run, RUN before it was too late, and watched as Kaya gripped Sev’s arm with one hand, the other wrapped protectively around her stomach, while Yeena—shy, blushing, boring Yeena—glared so fiercely at the priests that for the first time, Rafi thought seriously about kissing her.
Somehow, long before Torva gave him that string of beads, this place had become home, this tribe family, and Nahiki dove open-armed into the net they represented while Rafi knew he had been a fool to let himself be noosed. These were the things that got a man killed.
Rafi released all hope of ever being free and opened his mouth to speak. But the voice he heard was not his own.
“I slew the beast.”
It was not the voice of a ghost either.
It was a quiet, raspy, familiar voice, and just the sound of it numbed Rafi’s limbs and smothered his own confession unspoken. He gaped as Torva limped forward, hands raised, and the priests closed around him like scadtha legs caging a kill.
“I slew it,” Torva repeated. “Take me, and let my blood cleanse the village.”
No . . . no.
Rafi tried to speak but no sound came.
Cortovah took a step closer, looming over the old fisherman, then lashed out with a barehanded strike that left a thin line of red marking his forehead. Cut as if by a blade. “You,” the priest snarled, “did not slay the beast.”
Blinking, Torva raised a gnarled hand to the cut.
“But your blood will be accepted. Take him.”
Voices swelled as the soldiers dragged Torva away. Iakki yelled. Sev shouted. Yeena cursed. Gordu sputtered. All of it pounded in Rafi’s head, driving a spike of pain between his eyes until it was swallowed up by a roar that shocked him back to his senses as the largest stone-eye tiger strained against its traces.
“Wait.” He found his voice. “Wait!” He shoved through the Alonque, dashing aside restraining hands, and tossed his battle-scarred harpoon at Cortovah’s feet. “I did it. It was me. I slew the beast with my own hand—harpoon, that is, with my own harpoon and—”
He was babbling.
The priest turned away.
Rafi seized his elbow. “I did it. You must take me—”
Something slammed into his stomach. He doubled over, gasping. Glimpsed the spear pulling back before it hammered into his spine, dropping him to his hands and knees. His lungs screamed. He spat out blood from where he’d bitten his tongue and winced at a stinging pain in his forehead.
The ghost’s voice suddenly thundered in his ears, as if he had broken through the surface of the sea to find a storm raging above. “There you are!”
It was a voice he knew and yet it was different too. It was the difference that made him shudder. His fingertips came back bloodied from his forehead as the spear came for his throat, forcing his chin back until he could see the gleam of excitement on Cortovah’s face. There was something strange about the priest’s outstretched hand. The index finger was missing and had been replaced by a claw. Was that what had stung his forehead? It looked like it was made from some dark material. Metal, maybe?
He hoped it was metal.
“Yes.” Cortovah licked his lips. “You are the one.”
Priests clapped Rafi on either shoulder, and the spear at his throat caged him in. But Torva’s captors were still dragging him toward the sea. Why hadn’t they let him go? He twisted and found a thin-lipped smile on Cortovah’s face.
“Oh, this you will want to watch.”
“What?”
Cortovah turned away.
“Hey, hey! Watch what?” Rafi lunged after him, but the spearpoint jabbed his throat, and blood trickled down his neck. He shouted himself hoarse instead, as one by one the villagers were herded beneath the sting of Cortovah’s claw. Most were released, but a few were escorted after Torva into the sea where not one but seven stakes awaited the incoming tide.
But he had confessed.
Why didn’t they just sacrifice him?
“No, let me go!”
That was Iakki’s scream.
Rafi jerked his head up. He caught a flash of wiry arms and kicking legs as a priest dragged the boy away. Sev shouted and lunged after him, took a soldier’s fist to the jaw and went down. He was up again in an instant, skinning knife in hand. In a blink, the soldier fell to one knee, knife buried in his leg. Sev snatched his spear and cracked him across the head.
One of Rafi’s captors cursed. “Release the stone-eyes before we have a riot!”
One set of hands left his shoulders, but the spear digging into his throat killed all hope of breaking to Sev’s defense as two soldiers rushed to attack. But Sev no longer stood alone. A handful of young Alonque swarmed the soldiers with fists and knives, and Gordu waded into the fray after them, shouting for peace.
His blood sprayed the sand.
Blade dripping, Gordu’s attacker stepped back. Silence snapped across the beach. Rafi felt the change coming like a storm-charge in the air moments before furious shouts broke out. The spear at his throat wavered as his guard twisted to look. Rafi knocked it aside and threw his weight onto the chain dangling from the priest’s manacled neck. They both landed sprawling in the sand, Rafi only inches from the harpoon he had tossed at Cortovah’s feet. Seizing the haft, he shot up and slammed it across the priest’s back, dropping him with a groan.
“Hurts doesn’t it?” Rafi flicked his wrist, rotating the harpoon point down. But what was he going to do? Stab him in the back? Just the thought made him sick.
“Nahiki!”
Rafi spun at Iakki’s scream. He knew from experience that wrestling the boy was like trying to fight an octopus barehanded, so it was no surprise the priest had only managed to drag him—kicking, hitting, and digging in his heels—to the shoreline. Rafi took off, caught up as Iakki bit down on the priest’s hand, and cut the man’s howl short with a swipe that took out his legs and a blow to the head that left him drooling.
Iakki launched into him, arms cinching around his neck. Heart thudding in his chest, Rafi held the boy as he scanned the beach. Waves hissed around Torva and the other captives stumbling from the shallows, forgotten in the confusion. The rest of the villagers were scattered, some fighting, some dead, most fleeing for the jungle.
In the thick of it, Sev jabbed a spear in the air. “Nahiki, here!”
Rafi lurched toward him and met a stone-eye tiger’s gaze head on. A yellow wave engulfed him. His vision snapped into bursts of light. Hearing faded. Limbs stiffened. Screaming made no sound. Iakki yanked his arm, and he willed himself to move, but his body resisted.
Then Iakki was gone. Just . . . gone.
And his ears burned with Cortovah’s soft laughter.
Someone shoved him back. He fell into a wave that crashed overhead, breaking the spell. Saltwater burned his nose and stung his eyes, clouding his vision. As if through sheeting rain, he saw the wiry old fisherman standing between him and the tiger.
It pounced.
Claws struck. Jaws snapped shut.
“No!” He sloshed to his feet and felt as though his chest had been split open as the tiger jerked its head, tossing Torva’s limp form across the sand. He lunged for the fisherman, knowing in his heart that it was too late. That Torva was dead. That there was nothing he could do. Again.
Cortovah cut him off with Rafi’s own harpoon.
Rafi yelled and dove into him, dashing the blade aside. It sliced his right arm as they crashed beneath the waves, but he latched on, wrestling it away before kicking free and surfacing. Cortovah’s waterlogged robes slowed his rise, so Rafi knocked him down again and anchored the harpoon against his throat.
Chest heaving, he spoke in gasps. “Hear my terms, priest. Leave this village. Swear never to return. You survive. Refuse? I’ll kill you like I killed that scadtha.”
“Would you kill the boy too?”
Maybe it was the throbbing pulse in his head or the stab of loss in his chest, but it wasn’t until Cortovah’s gaze flicked past him that he understood. Iakki. Slowly, carefully, he shifted until he could see the hulking soldier standing chest-deep in the surf, pinning the boy so waves slapped against his face.
“What is he to you, I wonder? A brother to replace the one lost years ago?”
Rafi choked, startled back to the priest by the trailing echo of a scream in his ears. Smugness oiled Cortovah’s expression and voice, and there was a knowing grin on his face. But . . . he couldn’t know, could he?
“Oh, yes.” Cortovah nodded. “The Voice has spoken. He knows your name, Rafi Tetrani of House Korringar, second son of Nement late Emperor of Nadaar. Lost. Presumed dead. But currently breathing unless my eyes deceive me, though”—his voice twisted wryly—“that may soon be remedied.”
Before that utterance of name and title, the thin veneer that was Nahiki the Alonque shattered, until only Rafi remained. He swayed as waves crashed against his knees.
“Tell me, Rafi, did you watch your brother die?”
Iakki’s cry cut off as the soldier shoved him beneath the waves. His limbs thrashed. One hand punched the surface.
“Let him go!” Rafi sprang for the soldier. “Iakki—”
Searing cold ripped into his left side and brought fiery pain in its wake. He doubled over, gut heaving. Cortovah stood in a rush of water, blood dripping from the blade in his hand, and stepped back with a flourish. “Death, O Prince, comes to all sooner or later.”
Soonest to Iakki if Rafi could not save him.
His senses reeled as the soldier waded ashore, leaving Iakki’s limp form to float in on the tide. Iakki wasn’t . . . wasn’t struggling anymore. Rafi’s vision darkened and his knees gave out. The salt sting shocked him alert. Shouts rang out but no one halted him as he floundered toward Iakki. Caught him and forced his head above water. Pounded his chest until the boy gasped in a sputtering breath and clung limply to him as he tried to swim.
The boy was Alonque. Practically half-fish. He would be fine.
So long as Rafi could swim them far away from this beach where the priests and their beasts prowled, but his limbs were weak, and Iakki was an anchor dragging him down, down, down, until the sea closed overhead. He sank through a cloud of crimson blossoming from his wound, and the underwater world was not vibrant now. Only cold.
Shadows loomed before him. A whiskery kiss scraped his forehead. Blue eyes, so familiar, gazed into his own.
“Delmar?” he breathed. At last.
FIFTEEN: CERIDWEN
Earthhewns grow largest, become strongest, and endure longest of all solborn. Their hides are armored and colored the dark reds, grays, browns, and blacks of soil. Over time, a single spiraling horn grows from the brow of the mightiest steeds.
Ceridwen gripped her reins with trembling fingers. She closed her eyes, but the collapse was seared across her vision. Screaming warriors, falling steeds, her father. All branded in her mind. Beside her, an Outrider cursed. “Flames take their devilish hides and—”
Something wet struck her face. She jerked her head up to see the arrow in his throat before the Outrider collapsed and Mindar shied away.
His movement saved her.
She felt the blade rush past her face. Glimpsed the wielder on her right—dull gray leathers, shadowrider cloak—as she drew her sabre. Metal flashed on her left. Blazes, two attackers? Too late to block, she wheeled Mindar and blasted the swordsman with flame. An arrow splintered against her cuirass. Shards struck her half mask, missing her eyes. She rammed Mindar chest-first into the shadower before it could ghost in the smoke. Flames slammed into the shadowrider’s face, and his howl cut off as her blade cleaved into his neck.
Blood splattered the sun emblem on his chest. Ardon’s sun.
He twisted as he fell, and her blade slid free of his weight.
Shouts rang behind. Ceridwen spun, sabre raised, as an Outrider brought her stormer’s hooves crashing down on an unhorsed warrior. Kilmark te Bruin lurked beyond. Their eyes met and Ceridwen knew it then, knew it with a cold certainty that knifed through her gut: he meant to kill her.
In the valley, dying screams, shrieking steel, and colliding horseflesh roared. That was where the fight should be—where she should be. While their countrymen bled, these riders of the south dared betray their own?
Gravel shot beneath the stormer’s hooves as it fled. Three Ardon warriors veered in pursuit. This low place between hills prevented a launch, so the Outrider would have to run for open ground to gain enough speed for flight. The remaining riders surrounded Ceridwen: two swordsmen, an archer, and Kilmark.
Blazes. She could not battle four and emerge victorious. Could she?
The swordsman to her left fought to calm his plunging riveren. Nostrils flared and suffused with blood, it backed away from Mindar. Close quarters made her flammable steed an advantage—small, perhaps, but she would claim it. How many times had Markham warned her that fireborn were dangerous? Reckless. Ill-tamed. Volatile.
“But bloody fierce . . .”
She counted on it.
Wood creaked as the archer drew. Mindar flamed as he reared, charring bow and arrow. His descent invested Ceridwen’s stroke with blinding force. Her blade hewed through the archer’s coif and lodged in his collarbone. The impact reverberated up her arm. She spun Mindar, flames spewing from his throat. Summoning too much too fast risked winding him, but she needed to force her attackers back before their numbers overwhelmed—
There, an opening.
Ceridwen dove through with a wild backhand slash that barely missed Kilmark’s knee. A sword scored her saddle and carved a glistening red line across Mindar’s hindquarters as he plunged past and stretched into a full-out run. Reins loose, urging him onward, she looked back only once more before committing to her race.
Riverrider and earthrider pursued.
The sword-wielding shadowrider had ghosted.
Even if Mindar could not outrun all three, a long pursuit would scatter them, diminishing the advantage of numbers. She just had to hold out. Regroup with the rearguard. Find Finnian. That last goal throbbed in her mind with each beat of Mindar’s hooves.
