Shadow Blade, page 30
“I’ll find you, Ashai. And will send a hundred Denari Lai after—”
Ashai swept his dagger across the man’s throat, blood spraying in the night. As the Spymaster of Dar Tallus fell dead, Ashai said a silent prayer, then ran for the woods.
He ran as fast as he could, but still the soldiers gained on him, closing the distance until Ashai knew he couldn’t reach the trees in time. As the void of Nishi’s power swept through his body, Ashai slowed. What was the point in running? Tan was right. He’d lost everything.
He dropped from a jog to a walk. He didn’t deserve to live.
Then Makari stepped from the woods, a handful of thieves behind her.
“I still need you! Run!”
Ashai’s heart leapt, and suddenly his legs worked again. He found himself sprinting for the trees.
Each thief raised a bow and fired. Over and over again they shot, arrows arcing over his head. Behind him, yells turned to cries of pain, and after the third volley, Ashai reached the trees and looked behind him. The soldiers were running the opposite way.
When he raised his arm, his hand shook. Grekkyl appeared, offering a vial full of pink powder and a flask of wine.
“The powder will still your shaking for a while. The wine will … make you feel better.”
He did as he was told.
It was gone. The thread that connected him to Nishi’s power was not just out of reach. It did not exist. It was gone. Forever.
Doubling over, Ashai fell to his knees, his vision blurring, and his head throbbing as if about to implode. Darkness closed in from all around him, an empty cavern as cold and dead as a grave. As he pitched forward, though, right before he hit the ground, he felt something else inside him. Something bright and hot, burning deep within him, hidden behind wall after wall, stashed away behind shadow upon shadow of his own sin. He reached for it, finding hope and possibility there, but it was too late.
Darkness claimed him.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They kneeled along the edge of the woods, the evening sun raking low from behind them, turning the shadows of the trees into black giants, stretched across the plains before them. Makari inhaled, savoring the scent of the woods, of pine and loam and leaves rotting underfoot. Her breath crystallized before her face, and even through the thick gloves she wore, her fingers tingled with the encroaching cold.
Beside her, Ashai’s expression was grim, as dark as the growing dusk around them. Except for his eyes, of course, which glowed gold.
She followed his gaze across the open plain north of Dar Tallus, taking in the sheer enormity of the Pushtani Army as it marched north, steel glinting in the waning light. Banners whipped in the cold, autumn wind, a wind that stayed out of the woods, preferring the easier traveling of the grassland beyond. The army wound north along the King’s Highway, a shining, silver snake longer than anything she’d ever seen, stretching as far south as she could see.
“I wonder if this is what they wanted,” Ashai said, his voice low and dangerous. “If the Chargh Lai and the others wanted war.”
Even in the woods for three days, they’d heard the rumors of war, the thieves bringing them information on a frequent basis. Celani had convinced the royal council that the assassination and the uprisings were preludes to a Nishi’iti invasion, and with their pride already prickling, they’d been eager to send in the army to settle the score.
“Is there any way we can stop them?” She asked.
Ashai said nothing, but the look on his face said there was not.
“A war will make it hard to cross into Nishi’iti.” Grekkyl had come to stand behind them, her tiny frame more bent than normal. Her battle with Tan had drained her, but she stayed with them to help Ashai learn to use his power.
Ashai nodded. “I’ll have to go through Neskania and cross the western border. That should throw off the Chargh Lai’s searching, too.”
“At least they can’t track your old power.” Makari almost regretted bringing it up.
“It was never really mine. I was merely allowed to borrow it, and the terms of that agreement are no longer acceptable … or available to me. Now I either learn to use what’s truly mine, or we’re all dead.”
She couldn’t argue that, so she let the matter drop. Rising, he drew them both back into the trees where their squad of thieves waited. Ashai walked up to the leader, a stocky man with a low forehead and hands like hams at the ends of his arms.
“Any word of Tomar’s fate?”
The other shook his head. “None. The Sixth Guild has not been in touch with us yet, so we must assume General Celani and the Capitol Watch are cracking down. But there are no rumors of his capture, either.”
“Encouraging,” Makari told him. “I hope he was able to help his people.”
A smile split the man’s square face.
“Your supplies and horses await further back in the trees,” he told them. “Enough food to last you at least a couple of weeks on the road. We must leave you now and return to the city to find Tomar and rebuild.”
Makari nodded. “Tell him we owe him a great debt, and I will repay it someday.”
As one, the thieves bowed, then slipped off into the woods, disappearing as if they were part of the trees themselves.
“What now?” Grekkyl stood, hands on hips, as if she expected a full detailing of their plans.
“Now we head west,” Ashai told her. “We aren’t safe anywhere in Pushtan, so we’ll follow the woods all the way to the swamps of Lyres. Crossing them will be difficult, but I know a man who can help.”
“And once we’re free of the bogs?” Makari asked.
“Then I will stash you away at a safe location in Lyres. I know many people there. I’ll make my way into Nishi’iti and try to get to the Chargh Lai without being killed. He’ll listen to me. I’ll convince him to lift the order to kill you and give you a chance to do better than your father did in treating our people.”
“You think I’m just going to stay somewhere while you go off and try to save my life? You obviously didn’t get to know me very well.”
Ashai started to argue, but Grekkyl stepped in. “The best way for this Chargh Lai to know Makari is to meet her, face-to-face. He will not take the word of a shiner. No insult intended.”
Ashai winced at the term. “None taken. The word is accurate. I am a shiner, for now. By the time I get to Tabi Ge Nishi, though, I hope to not need the dust anymore, so my eyes should be normal. And I should have power the Chargh Lai does not control.
“But with you two along, there is no way I’d even make it into the city. We’d all be killed long before reaching the Chargh Lai.”
“Then you’ll have to learn to use your own magic and disguise us well,” Makari told him. “I’m not spending weeks or months locked up like a deer in a clearing, sitting still for the Army or whoever to kill me.”
“And you need me to teach you,” Grekkyl added. “You cannot learn in time on your own.”
“I really don’t think—”
Makari raised her hand and silenced him.
“I am not offering you a choice, Ashai. You betrayed me once. I’m not sure I trust you again, so until I do, you’re staying in arm’s reach. Period.”
Ashai sighed deeply, then raised his hands helplessly at his sides.
“Then we go together.” She thought he might have smiled a bit at saying that, and it made her glad as he went on. “But you must do as I tell you, princess. You’re not the expert at covert affairs. I am.”
“Within reason, I will.”
He shook his head, but she’d left him no choice and she knew it. Together, they started off to find their horses.
Epilogue
He staggered along the narrow, muddy path, rain soaking his clothing and further clouding his already blurry vision. He no longer knew where he was, had lost track days ago. Or was it weeks? He no longer knew that, either.
In fact, most of what he knew, most of what he could remember, he repeated over and over again under his breath, a litany of repeated words forming a lifeline to his past.
“Dar Tallus. Kendshi.”
There was another word, but he couldn’t remember.
Kendshi. He knew her, a face floating in the eye of his mind. Beautiful eyes, dark and deep like pools. Long, midnight hair. Blood. Blood everywhere, smearing her face and staining her blue, silk robe.
She was dead, murdered. He remembered now. He had to find the killer. Kill them.
But he didn’t know who they were.
Ahead of him loomed a forest, a dark line gashing against the slate gray horizon. Maybe the trees would keep the rain off, so he wandered in that direction, plodding along, focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
He’d started to shiver earlier in the day, as the cold rain pounded him and his feet turned numb, his boots soaked beyond the point of drying during his brief nightly stops. He knew what the shivering meant, at least in the back of his mind he knew, somewhere distant and protected, but equally out of reach. He’d taken a fever, which made sense in that dark corner of his mind. The nights were cold now, the rain turning to snow or ice, pelting his skin, and making him seek shelter in whatever way he could.
His options were limited, though. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew he couldn’t let anyone see him, couldn’t ask for shelter. He knew people were a danger to him, would send him back where he’d come from. Back to the place he’d fled. The place of death.
So he had to stay hidden, out of sight, and often that meant he defined shelter as a stand of trees or an outcropping of rocks. The foothills had plenty of both, but neither really did much to keep the rain off, and without a fire, he’d never been able to get truly warm or dry.
Thus, with the sun just touching the western horizon, he shuddered and quaked, and struggled to recall his own name.
Just outside the woods, he slipped and went down, body cracking through a thin layer of ice and plunging him into deep, cold mud. His already drenched clothing became heavier, weighted down with the grayish-brown slop, and he had to fight just to climb back to his knees.
As if to mock him, the rain stiffened, pouring down harder than ever, nearly driving him back down on his face. But the trees were close now, close enough he could make out each one rather than just a mass of brown and green, and their promise of shelter gave him the strength to stand and start moving forward again.
The wind howled and shifted, blowing in his face, trying to keep him from reaching the woods, but he leaned into it and forged ahead.
“Dar Tallus. Kendshi.”
One foot ahead of the other, slowly, like a turtle making for a rock, Pachat finally reached the edge of the trees. He stopped, peering into their shadows, straining to listen for any sign of movement. For a moment, almost like he was dreaming, he thought he heard voices muttering deep inside the woods. He craned his neck forward, putting his head near the closest tree.
The sound went away and he shook his head. The fever was playing tricks on his mind.
Almost as soon as he entered the shelter of the trees, his body warmed. The canopy overhead filtered the rain and seemed to warm it, too. He took a deep breath and shuddered as he let it out.
He walked a few paces deeper into the woods, looking for a spot he could build a shelter and a fire. He saw a copse inside a circle of rocks ahead of him, and started for them. Something moved to his left, little more than a flicker of light. He looked, but saw nothing.
He needed that fire. Needed to rest.
He managed to trudge to the rocks, stepping inside the circle and dropping to his knees. Before him, a circle of smaller rocks ringed a pile of wet ash, and someone had woven pine boughs from several nearby trees together to form a crude roof that kept all but a fine mist from soaking the little circle.
Beside the fire pit sat a stack of dry firewood and kindling.
Someone had been here. Recently.
Movement made him jump back to his feet, spinning around to the right. His head swam, and he almost fell again. Somehow he managed to remain upright, and when the world stopped spinning, he found himself facing an old woman.
She stood outside the circle of boulders, drops of rain dripping on her from the trees above, her white hair matted and dingy. She stared at him with eyes of brilliant blue, her face a prune with a nose. Her hands hung limp at her side. She said nothing, simply staring at him with those snowy eyes.
“Dar Tallus. Kendshi.” It was all he knew.
She seemed to consider that a moment, then turned her head and called back over her shoulder.
“He’s not armed. Better come here.”
Two more people melted from the trees, one man and one woman. His heart thundered in his chest and he fought he urge to flee. He needed help, even if it meant capture.
People who could hurt him. Could take him back to darkness and death.
His hand strayed toward his belt. There had been a weapon there once, long ago. Where had it gone? Distant memories flashed. Men, many of them. They’d surprised him. Taken everything. Weapons. Food.
Left him hurt and wandering.
He touched his fingers to his temple and found a large scab, and pain.
“Who is he?”
The man spoke. Gray robes, dark eyes. Black hair matted to his head. A curved dagger in one hand, sword in the other. Something seemed familiar about him.
He stepped forward, moving like a stalking cat, smooth and fluid. Dangerous. Pachat stepped back, hands coming up.
“Don’t know,” said the old woman. “Looks like he’s one of you, though.”
That confused him. How could he be one of whoever the dangerous man was?
He swayed on his feet, nearly falling again, steadying himself by sheer force of will.
The man squinted at him and nodded. “Escaped slave. From the uprising.”
Beside him, a younger woman stood, cowl of her forest green cloak up around her head, hiding her face, but the curve of her hip through her leather pants gave her away as a woman. A longsword rode at her hip, a dagger in her belt, too.
“Kill him.” Her voice was cool, commanding, and yet somehow, her voice calmed him. Soothed him. “We cannot risk being identified.”
“Dar Tallus. Kendshi.”
The young woman stiffened, her head snapping up inside the hood.
“What did you say?”
“Dar Tallus. Kendshi.” His teeth chattered this time, though he didn’t know if it was from fever, cold, or fear. And what was that third word?
“Kendshi? What do you know of Kendshi?”
The man put his hand on her forearm and held her from stepping closer.
“It is a common name for us. It doesn’t mean anything.”
The woman shook off his hand and stepped closer anyway. The man’s eyes started to glow, a frightening gold light appearing as if they were tiny suns.
Then he remembered, the third word crawling from his tired lips. His name, lost for days, returned to him.
“Kendshi. Dar Tallus. Pachat.”
He felt her gaze lock onto him, knew she was searching him for answers.
“Pachat. Is that your name? Pachat?”
His mind swam, and fear flared brighter in his heart. She knew him. She would take him back. He inched backward, waiting for a chance to flee without being killed. Or taken back.
But the woman in the cloak did not come closer. Slowly, she lifted her hands to the edge of her hood.
“I knew someone named Kendshi.” This time her voice softened. “And she had a lover. A betrothed named Pachat.”
“Nishi save us,” muttered the dangerous man, eyes flashing in the dim forest light. “It’s him. Of all the people to run across in the forest of eastern Thahr, we find the one man wanted as much as we are. The slave who started the uprising.”
The woman stepped slowly forward, and as Pachat’s stomach tensed, she drew back her hood. Eyes as blue as the winter sky stared at him from a face so pale and perfect he thought there could be no such beauty anywhere else in the world. A face familiar to him, one he thought he knew. Trusted.
“Do not fear,” she said. “I knew your Kendshi.”
She moved forward and took his hands in hers.
“Kendshi?” he croaked.
She was his betrothed. Now he remembered. She’d been taken, too. And killed. How had she died? His memories faded.
“Yes, your love. She was my dearest friend in all the world. She served me well and faithfully, and I will do anything in my power to help her love.”
“Served? Help?” Pachat did not understand.
She smiled again, and all his worries washed away.
“It is good to meet you, Pachat.” She stared into his eyes and her mere attention seemed to warm him. “My name is Makari.”
Acknowledgments
I wrote this book as a “back up thesis” for my MFA degree, a feat I never would have considered possible without the mentoring and encouragement of the faculty of Western State University. Specifically Russell Davis, Michaela Roessner, J.S. Mayank, Stacia Deutsch, Candace Nadon, and Mark Todd. You showed me what I was capable of, and made me reach that potential.
And once written, it might never have seen the light of day without the support and enthusiasm of Kevin J. Anderson and the folks at WordFire Press. They believed in Shadow Blade from the moment I submitted it, and have worked furiously to make it an amazing book. Thank you.
About the Author
Chris started writing stories in his early teens, and he hand-wrote (yes, with a pen and lined notebook paper) his first novel in 1982. He transcribed it using an IBM Selectric II typewriter the next year, then hid it in a box in his attic, where no one would ever find it. He worked as Co-Editor of The Tempest, the first-ever literary magazine of Lake George Central High School in upstate New York, and won Literary Student of the Year for his graduating class in 1984.
