Heir of Shandara (Book 4) (13 page)

“Sir, I have a question if you don’t mind?” Chinta asked.

“By all means,” Halcylon invited.

“This place we’re heading. Rexel. It’s not a high-priority target. I’m not certain why we’re going to attack it. I’m not questioning the order. You say wipe that city from the face of the planet, then I will do as you command. But still, some of us are wondering why we didn’t head straight for Shandara.”

“We’re going to the place the humans call Rexel to teach them something,” Halcylon said.

“What’s that, sir?”

“We’re going to teach them about defeat. We’re going to teach them about fear and hopelessness. Right now, our enemy thinks they have a chance to defeat us. Our passive scans of Shandara show that the city has heavy defenses in place. Defenses I think we can overcome, but I want them put off balance. I want their world crumbling down around them. They don’t have the capacity to defend the other cities, and they know it. The way we defeat Rexel and unleash the Forsaken upon the land will scatter them like bugs. In the days ahead, they will learn to fear their betters. I may even entertain offers of surrender after a time—but not until after many of them are dead and gone. We will have our vengeance for the fate these humans cursed us to. They thought to lock us away on our dying planet. We will soak the ground in human blood before this is over, and they will answer for all the Hythariam not with us today,” Halcylon said.
 

Chinta saluted him with fire in his eyes. Halcylon knew the word would be spread. He was the heart of the Zekara, and all of Safanar would feel the fires of his rage before he was done.
 

C
HAPTER
12

FAMILY MATTERS

Sarah had thought she could simply return to Khamearra and hunt for her brother Rordan, but she was mistaken. No longer could she simply go about her own business. As High Queen, she had responsibilities and duties to attend to.
 

The day-to-day business of running the city had been placed upon the shoulders of her administrators—at least the ones she’d kept in service after she ascended the throne. And in no uncertain terms had she put it to those administrators that the practices afforded under her father’s rule would not be tolerated under her own. That wasn’t to say that corruption all but disappeared because it hadn’t. Despite the monster her father had been, he had instilled a follow my command or else mentality among the city’s administrators. Once they were put to work, the administrators who ran the city executed their tasks with rigid efficiency. They had no choice under her father’s rule, or their lives and the lives of their family were forfeit. Fear inspired results in the short term at least, but it wasn’t the loyalty that Sarah wanted to inspire as Khamearra’s High Queen.
 

But Sarah’s chief responsibility was leadership, and she’d engaged with the highest leaders first, as soon as she’d returned. Sarah was no stranger to the city and had plenty of ideas on how to improve how it was run, but to get the best from her people she needed for them to trust her enough to suggest improvements as well.
 

That was one of the cornerstones of Shandara’s greatness: the value of contribution and coordinated effort. One of the best appointments to a post had been Nolan, the district captain who’d aided the Resistance at great risk to himself and his family. She had promoted him to captain commander in charge of all Khamearra’s districts. She would be meeting with him soon, but at the district headquarters of the captain commander and not at her office in the palace. If word spread that the High Queen was in court this day, then she would never get anything done.
 

And Isaac’s report of Rordan’s activity had her worried. There had been a time when she had thought that Rordan might be swayed from their father’s influence, but he had descended onto a dark path. Rordan had been the most levelheaded of her brothers. He had none of Primus’s insecurities or Tye’s need to garner their father’s attention. Rordan had proved to be the cleverest of her brothers, but her presence had always threatened them.
 

Now Tye and Primus were both dead. Tye, with Mactar’s prodding, had thrown himself at Aaron and had died in the process. Primus had been killed when he tried to kill her at Shandara. Rordan was hers alone to pursue. She would not burden Aaron with this. He had enough to deal with, and truth be told, Rordan was her mess to clean up.
 

Now that she was here, she yearned to be at Aaron’s side. But she couldn’t let Rordan move around her kingdom, killing indiscriminately. Like it or not, she was best suited for tracking Rordan down and stopping him once and for all.
 

A soft knock came at the door to her office.

Isaac stuck his head in. “Your Grace, General Khoiron is here as requested.”

“Send him in, and please come in as well, Isaac.”

After a few moments, Isaac returned with the craggy-faced general. His weathered hands looked as if they could squeeze blood from a stone.

General Khoiron raised his fist to his heart and bowed his head respectfully. “Your Grace, when I offered my services I had thought you would have taken me up sooner rather than later.”

“We’ve had a bit of house cleaning to attend to, my Lord,” Sarah answered mildly.

“I hope the information I’ve supplied from my agents proved useful,” Khoiron said.

Sarah studied the old general for a moment, considering. “Indeed it has. Make no mistake, General, I know what you’ve done in my father’s service. What I would like to know from you is why you offered your services to me.”

The old general eyed her with steel-gray eyes that matched his hair. “Yours is the stronger claim to the throne, your Grace. I’ve seen what your brother can do, and he never would have made a good king. The people want you, and a majority of our armies are loyal to you. I’ve spoken at length with the Free Nations Army general who calls himself Gavril. A Hythariam. He knows his business, your Grace. He makes a compelling argument of the threats that face us all.”

“Where do you stand then?” Sarah asked.

“Wherever you command me, your Grace,” Khoiron said. After a few moments, he continued. “Your brother brought up the warning given to him by the Heir of Shandara. He urged your father to seriously consider it, but Amorak would hear none of it. At the time, I agreed with him. Better to face an enemy you can see than concern yourselves with something that may never come to pass.”

“You know that I stood with the Resistance and fought with the Free Nations Army against the armies of Khamearra,” Sarah said.

“I won’t stand here and say I lived a lifetime of regret serving under your father because I didn’t. I served my king proudly. I brought glory to this kingdom. The king didn’t need to exert his influence to get me to do what he required. I stood apart from his other generals because I delivered results, and I wasn’t foolish enough to incur his wrath. I would serve you, my queen. You have problems to face, and quite honestly, you need me. You need my agents to help you hold this kingdom together—especially with the Zekara,” Khoiron said.

Sarah knew the old general wasn’t being boastful. She did need him. Men like Khoiron lived for the challenges she faced. He was a brilliant tactician. “You accept that the Zekara are a threat to us all then?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, your Grace. As I’ve said before, speaking with the Hythariam general was enlightening, and we can now trace some of the strange reports from my agents to Zekaran activity. At least that is my hunch,” Khoiron said.

“What strange reports?”

“Disappearances, your Grace. Not just a few people, but entire towns full of people gone. My agents reported evidence of them being rounded up by tall black-armored warriors. The description of the warriors matched the attacks on this city. I knew immediately that this was not the work of the Free Nations Army, but the descriptions were clearly of the Hythariam. After speaking with Gavril, it didn’t take much to convince me of the threat we are now facing.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of people gone missing.”

“When I got the report, I wanted to see the area for myself. I came to Isaac here and asked if one of the former Elitesmen could take me up there with the use of the travel crystal,” Khoiron said.

“I took him myself, your Grace,” Isaac said. “It was just as he said. The people were rounded up and taken from their homes.”

Sarah knew from Aaron that the leader of the Zekara, General Halcylon, blamed humans for his race’s suffering.

Khoiron cleared his throat. “Any idea why they would be capturing our people?”

“The leader of the Zekara is called General Halcylon. He is taking the people to build up an army,” Sarah answered.

“A peasant doesn’t a soldier make,” Khoiron quoted.

“That is correct, but they don’t need to train them. The Zekara have the power to change people into creatures like the Ryakuls,” Sarah said, and proceeded to explain the origins of the Ryakuls and how they were once Dragons. Halcylon, she told them, had managed to modify the virus so it would affect humans.

“This could throw everything into chaos,” Khoiron said.

“The Free Nations Army believes that the Zekara will be focused on taking Shandara,” Sarah said.

“Why?”

“Because Shandara represents their biggest threat. The Hythariam worked with the Shandarians for years getting the city ready in the event that the Zekara invaded.”

“Please forgive me, your Grace. The Zekara, are they not Hythariam?” Khoiron asked.

“They are indeed the same race, but the Zekara were mostly made up of Hytharia’s most ruthless military faction. They hold humans responsible for their suffering for the past eighty years. It was Aaron’s great-grandfather, Daverim Alenzar’seth, who perceived that some of the Hythariam were a threat not only to Shandara but to all of Safanar. He created the barrier that kept the Zekara from invading. The barrier was linked to a living member of the Alenzar’seth line.”

General Khoiron’s eyes widened. “We never knew. The High King ordered us to invade Shandara, and the reason for that campaign’s success was because we had agents on the inside of the city. A man called Tarimus was instrumental in our armies gaining access to the city. We took them by surprise, but we had no idea what was at stake even after Shandara was all but destroyed. Our armies journeyed back across the lands with kingdoms swearing fealty to your father.”

“The Zekara are the real threat now. They will not offer us any quarter,” Sarah said, trying to avoid the shame she felt at the historical events that occurred before she was born. She remembered yearly celebrations of her father’s victory over Shandara, which had been left a wasteland. That is until Aaron returned. The barrier that had protected their world from the Zekara had been slowly siphoning away at Shandara and the surrounding lands, making them unlivable. In addition, the Ryakuls, under control of the Drake, had made the ruins of Shandara their home.
 

“The Zekara won’t ignore us forever,” Khoiron said. “If I had a weapon such as this Ryakul virus to use against my enemies, I wouldn’t just limit its application to where I was at the time. If they can control them? Then it’s a safe bet to assume that more of these Forsaken could start to show up. Do we know how the sickness spreads?” Khoiron brought his hands together as he paced.

“The Zekara have a means to spread it from a canister when they are killed. It is the opinion of the Hythariam that this is a limited application. Based on what we’ve seen, if you’re bitten or wounded from a Forsaken’s claw, then you will be turned into one of them. Once someone is infected, their body begins to change, but they are able to infect others within minutes before the transformation completes,” Sarah said.

“How long does the transformation take?” Isaac asked. The former Elitesman had been quiet until now, letting the old general ask his questions.

“It depends on how bad the wound is. The greater the wound, the quicker the infection acts,” Sarah answered.

Khoiron stopped pacing. “What do they look like after the transformation?”

Sarah sighed, thinking of the soldiers that had died at the camp. She felt her muscles tightening in readiness and glanced at Isaac. Aaron had ordered him to take her to safety. Knowing it was the right decision didn’t make leaving any easier. “I’ve only seen those newly infected. Their skin blackens, and their eyes fade. They become—crazed and will attack as if in a frenzy.”