Heirs of the Fallen: Book 04 - Wrath of the Fallen (14 page)

Leitos stood and padded softly to the window overlooking the palace grounds. The sun had not yet risen, but a ghostly gray half-light covered the world. In the semidarkness, Armala slumbered.
“A city of Black Keeps,”
his father had named it, a place of curses built by demons before the age of men, Zera had told him. He hated the sight of it, despised the dread it filled him with. He wanted to be away.

“I will leave soon,” he promised the coming dawn.

The Yatoan elders had begun arriving a few days before, men and women, each guarded by a contingent of warriors, and only set apart from those they ruled by the colorful sashes of rank each wore. All except Damoc. He seemed content to wear his forest-hued tunic and trousers.

After the last elder had arrived, Damoc took them to the Throat of Balaam, proving its destruction, then guided them through Armala, showing them how it had been abandoned. The night before, he feasted them in the great hall of their fallen enemy, Adu’lin. Leitos had avoided the affair. Fine food and small talk was irrelevant. “Will you fight?” was the only question they needed to answer.

And still I wait
, he thought, impatient.

Unable to sit still, he dressed in snug trousers, tunic, and his close-fitting robes. After belting on his sword and a dagger collected from one of the Brothers Adu’lin had turned into demon-possessed fiends, he draped a full quiver over his back and fetched his bow.

Silence held within the barracks, and Leitos walked softly enough not to disturb it. Other than a few sleepy-eyed guards, most Yatoans were still abed.
Let them sleep
, he thought.
Let them believe their victory is complete.

Beyond the palace grounds, Armala lay quiet under the brightening sky. The sun was just beginning to cast its first rays over the mist-shrouded peaks to the west. In the east, those bars of light painted massing thunderheads crimson. The normal midday storm might be stronger than usual.

For now it was a fine morning for hunting, though in the last few days his searches had yielded only another pair of Fauthians, and no Alon’mahk’lar. The few Yatoan patrols that had gone out had found even less. Yato, he reasoned, might actually be rid of foes.

But in Geldain, there were plenty of Alon’mahk’lar, those like the slavemasters, huge creatures with horned heads and six-fingered hands. There were also Alon’mahk’lar of a different sort, those creations of rebel Mahk’lar who possessed every crawling creature to make unspeakable abominations. And, too, the Na’mihn’teghul, who were able to go about in human flesh until they chose to reveal their true nature, usually a freakish kind of wolf. Zera had been unique among that breed, able to become a winged being of flesh and spirit. He hoped to never meet such a creature again.

After spending a long hour poking through dusty towers and manses, and studying grim monuments fashioned by demented minds, Leitos made his way back toward the palace. Before he reached the walls, he found Belina sitting on a bench. She didn’t seem to notice that the bench’s dark stone base was carved all over with screaming, inhuman faces. Neither did the dry fountain nearby appear to trouble her. It was a miscreation of ghastly proportions, graven feathers, wrinkled skin, and scores of twisted arms and legs. At least he
thought
they were limbs. They could have been serpents, or....

The thought trailed off under Belina’s clear hazel gaze. Pushing a lock of dark hair behind her hear, she looked at him as if uncertain who or what she was seeing. Ever since he came out of the Throat, Belina and everyone else had started favoring him with a similar expressions.
Let them think what they will.

“I would have expected to find you with your people,” Leitos said, taking a seat at the far end of the bench.

“They departed an hour ago.”

“I suppose after a long journey and a night of feasting, they must’ve been—” Leitos cut off, belatedly registering what she had said. He put on an eager grin. “Departed so soon? So, they must have seen reason? Of course, after hearing about what I learned in the Throat of Balaam, why would they delay? Only a fool would dismiss the danger we face. How long before they return with warriors?”

Belina stared at her hands. “They are not returning—with warriors or otherwise.”

Leitos’s grin became brittle, slowly crumbled. His mind whirled, trying to understand. When the answer came, it wore a sneering face. “Robis,” he snarled, hand involuntarily dropping to the hilt of his sword. “I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Belina interrupted, her worry palpable.

Not worry, Leitos realized, but stark fear bordering on terror. It trembled her mouth, shone in her eyes.

He tried to resurrect his broken grin, but it felt more like a hateful leer. “I’ll strip him bare and toss him into a pool brimming with fangfish,” he said, hoping the old jest between them would hide what he had intended to say.
I’ll carve out his reeking bowels
, had been the threat on his lips, a threat he had no trouble seeing himself make a reality.

With some effort, Belina composed herself. “It was not Robis,” she said at last. “At least, not much. He is a fool, and just a few years removed from boyhood, besides. Anyone who doesn’t know that already, figures it out after listening to him prattle on for a few minutes.”

“Then who?”

“
All
of them, save for my father.”

Leitos leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees. “I never would have believed your people could be so afraid.”

“It was not fear that decided them.” Belina hesitated. “They did not
believe
what you said about Peropis wanting to bind our souls in Geh’shinnom’atar. Most of my clan doesn’t believe you, either, although they do accept that you destroyed the Throat. They name you a hero, but they do so with sadness, for they think the effort broke your mind.”

Leitos gritted his teeth. “And you?”

Refusing to look at him, Belina shifted on the bench. “I ... I don’t know.” Now she searched his face. “When you stood on that table in the gathering hall, I knew you were not lying, but I also knew you were hiding something. Tell me, Leitos, how did you
really
learn what you told us?”

Your dead sister told me, the only woman I have ever loved, and the woman I killed.
He couldn’t tell her that. It might even have been a mistake to reveal the truth to his father.

Aloud, he said, “Everything I told was the truth. That is all that matters.” He stood up, settled his sword belt. “Perhaps it’s better this way. With so few of humankind to trouble her, maybe Peropis will spare those who are left. And, perhaps, if I travel alone, she will miss my coming.”

“
Alone?
What are you talking about?”

“Stay and cower with the rest, if you will,” Leitos said, failing to restrain his disappointment. “But I know what has to be done, if no one else does. And I will do it.”

“What, conquer Geldain by yourself? Fight Peropis and her armies singlehandedly?” Belina spat, jumping off the bench. She had to stretch, but she managed to jam her nose against his. “Will you lay siege to Kula-Tak with just your sword and bow, Leitos? Maybe what everyone says is true. Maybe you are mad!”

Leitos wrapped his anger in a cold fist and stepped backward. “My grandfather faced Peropis alone. It could be that is the fate of the Valara line, to stand where everyone else falls on their faces before their master. I will not bow or cower. I will fight.
Alone
, if need be.”

Belina closed in and stabbed a finger against his chest. “You can tell yourself that you fight when no one else will, but you will not be leaving Yato alone!” She spun, kicked a loose cobble across the courtyard, then stalked away, muttering curses under her breath.

~ ~ ~

True to Belina’s word, a pair of single-masted Yatoan longboats departed the largest isle of Yato the following morning, their long oars helping guide the boats past the shattered hulks of the Kelren slave ships the
Bloody Whore
and her sister the
Night Blade
. They made their way north into deep and treacherous waters. Damoc said it would take a fortnight, at the least, to reach Geldain. But that estimate would only hold true if all went well on Witch’s Mole, where they needed to gather supplies left behind by the Brothers of the Crimson Shield.

Leitos and Adham, Sumahn and Daris, Ulmek and a rocking and muttering Ba’Sel all shared one longboat with a dozen of Damoc’s faithful warriors. In the other, Belina tended Nola, who had refused to be left behind. Their father sat in the bow, his eyes on the horizon, while another dozen warriors took turns manning the longboat’s four pairs of oars. A pitifully small army, but Leitos and everyone else had outwardly voiced the opinion that they were the hard core that would give rise to a far greater force. Inwardly, they battled fear and doubt. No army of any size had ever bested Peropis when she had worn the mask of the Faceless One, so how could they hope to do so now?

To the few Yatoans who watched the departure along the shore, Robis solemnly declared, “We will never see any of them again.” A brash and foolhardy youth he might be, but no one refuted him.

Chapter 19

Lying under a concealing bush near the shore, Leitos listened as the breeze hooted and shrilled through the hollows that peppered Witch’s Mole, the largest and northernmost of the Singing Islands. It was a familiar and welcome sound after days of listening to the steady creak of oarlocks, the rustle of wind in the sails, and the lapping of the sea against the hulls of the longboats. Leitos supposed coming ashore was as close to a homecoming as he had ever known. Waves crashed in the distance, and spiraling seabirds cackled and squawked overhead.

“You remember how Halan used to collect gull’s eggs?” Adham asked next to him. “Gods good and wise, what I wouldn’t give for some of his cooking, something to cut the taste of salt fish from my tongue.”

“Don’t remind me,” Leitos said, belly growling, even as his heart ached for the loss of the meditative Brother, and so many others.

After looking at the fall of the shadows, he estimated they had a while yet to watch their prey. Sumahn and Daris would be along soon. Leitos settled into a more comfortable position, and fought the allure of dozing off in the dappled sunlight.

As expected, it had taken them the better part of a fortnight to sail from Yato to Witch’s Mole, where they would gather all the supplies the Kelren attack had forced them to abandon. The problem was, a good many sea-wolves still inhabited the island, those who had been left behind when their crewmates fled for Yato with Adham, Ba’Sel, and several more Brothers chained in the hold of the
Night Blade
.

In the meantime, the Kelren castaways had been busy building a flotilla of rafts. Ulmek was of the mind that none of the sea-wolves could be allowed to leave. As Kelrens had long since sided with the Bane of Creation, no one who had sailed from Yato disagreed. But killing so many slavers with little more than thirty warriors, would be no small feat.

Growing impatient, Leitos wormed about in the sandy soil and leaf litter. For the tenth time that morning, he counted the figures moving about on the sickle-shaped beach. Even at a distance, the sea-wolves looked brutal. Besides wide-bladed cutlasses at their waists, men and women alike wore only grubby white or black breeches that ended at the knee. To the last, their sun-darkened skin was covered in vulgar brands. The more brands a Kelren displayed, the greater their prowess and station within their clans.

“There’s nearly two score, now,” Leitos said. “Most are staggering drunk.”

“I would’ve thought they had run out of whatever swill they drink.”

“I wish it would’ve killed them,” Leitos allowed. “If anything, it seems to only make more of them.”

“
Many
more, if the number of rafts they have already built means anything,” Adham said, gray eyes narrowed.

Leitos checked the angle of the sun again, then the slope behind them. He tried to ignore a tickle of unease. “Sumahn and Daris should’ve been here by now. I think we—” he cut off when Adham’s eyes flared and he thrust a quieting finger against his lips.

Slowly, Leitos faced the beach, and cursed softly under his breath. A small band of Kelrens was heading their way. Two women, their breasts bare and swaying in time with their footsteps, and three brutish men, their raised scars rippling over corded muscle.

An apprehensive silence fell over Leitos and Adham. If they were found, all hope of surprise was lost.

The Kelrens came closer. By their rude banter and rowdy laughter, they were unaware that any foes lurked nearby. A wary eye could change all that in a moment.

“They outnumber us by a fair bit,” Adham said in a hush. The longer he observed the approaching raiders, the harder his expression became. “I give us fair odds. Are you ready to fight?”

“We can’t,” Leitos warned, considering the wider mission. “If we give ourselves away, they will have the advantage.”

Adham’s scowl deepened. “Aye, I suppose you have the way of it. Still, if they get much closer, we’re not likely to have much say in the matter.”