Brutus was probably the easiest of the group to deal with, since he didn’t even speak any human language (but he seemed to understand it, at least to a certain degree, the same way a dog or a horse knows which command to obey), and though the troll was unusually hostile even by the standards of its foul breed it followed Argus’ orders without question.
Argus. Slayne liked the man, at least in the limited dealings they’d had. The head of House Blue was an amateur politician, at best, inexperienced in the ways of the world, and before he’d been handed the reins of leadership for the mission he’d hardly ever stepped foot outside of Ral Tanneth. The Empress made slaves of her most trusted advisors, and Argus’ devotion to her permeated his every action. On the positive side, that same devotion made him confident and bold, and it had quickly become clear that he intended to achieve the Empress’s goals no matter the cost.
Slayne knew all about that. He remembered his wife, dying. It had been for the best. Not a night went by when he didn’t wake thinking about her, seeing her eyes locked on his as the blade came down.
She was tainted, and diseased. I did what I had to do. We’ll rest soon, my love. It was
their
mission, not mine. Dane is the last of the Dawn Knights. When he’s dead, I’ll join you, and maybe we’ll both find peace.
Slayne knelt in the sand and placed a hand on the tracks. Ijanna and her bodyguard had been joined by others, and Slayne passed that information on to Argus and Razel. Night was falling quickly. The red sky bled to black, and the clouds churned thick and low like a floating body of iron. The wind scaled hard against them. Dark desert and rocky bluffs stretched away in every direction.
“How many ‘others’?” Razel asked. Her blonde hair and purple cloak rippled in the wind.
“
Three,” Slayne said. “But more have been here. I’d say a party of a dozen or more passed through this area maybe three or four days ago, but just three of them waited for Ijanna.”
“
How far behind them are we?” Argus asked.
They set up camp in the shadow of a steep hill. Slayne knew Argus didn’t want to stop, but it was dangerous to travel at night, especially with so little information on the creatures they were liable to encounter out there. He saw Keeves and Jarro setting up the tents, and Malei walked a perimeter, keeping an eye out for scouts or Razorcats.
“Two or three days,” Slayne said. He rubbed some linseed oil over his chapped lips and had his hood drawn tight to keep wind-blown sand out of his face. It was no longer getting cold at night – the deeper you traveled into the Bonelands the hotter it became, even when the sun went down.
“
Any idea who these newcomers are?” Argus asked. He and Razel faced the wind, so he had to fight to keep his hood drawn.
“
Bloodspeakers,” Razel said. “I’m sure of it, based on their Veil signature. Powerful ones, too, or at least one of them is.”
“
They took out a pack of Razorcats without much trouble,” Slayne said as he stood up, his eyes on the stony ruins they’d passed. He was glad Razel had been able to push back the unnatural mists the Razorcats issued from their glands; doing so was one of the only ways to scare them off, and even then it was only the party’s numbers that kept the feline predators at bay. Sometimes even that didn’t matter – if a Razorcat was hungry enough it would take on any number of foes without concern for its own safety. Slayne certainly didn’t want to deal with the creatures.
I could, though
, he thought to himself.
Now that I control the wolf inside of me.
“
They used staves,” Argus said, half to himself. “Those are hard to come by.”
“
Red Hand?” Razel asked.
“
Who else?” Slayne said with something of a growl. “Bastards. I wish we’d have taken care of them when we had the chance three years ago.”
“
Let’s not broach that topic,” Argus said sternly, and Slayne laughed to himself. “Let’s just figure out what they’re doing out here.”
“
That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” Slayne said. “Malath Zayne knows a lot of things. He probably learned the Princess’s little secret, and now he wants to be her best friend.”
“
We can’t let that happen,” Argus said grimly. He looked northeast. “Two days, you said?”
“
We’ve made good time,” Slayne said with a nod. “Are you sure we can’t use another
cutgate
to get closer?”
“
No,” Argus said. “With the
thar’koon
damaged, we have nothing to hone in on.”
Slivers of cold moonlight spiked through the clouds, and shapes moved in the distant dark. His short blade felt good in his hand, as did the
vra’taar
concealed under his cloak. Slayne smelled blood in the wind. He longed to hunt – he’d figured out what had happened to him on the second day of their journey, and after a moment of fear and revulsion he’d realized becoming a wolf was the best thing that could have happened to him. His senses were sharper, his instincts drove him, and he was filled with such an insatiable lust and longing to draw blood it was almost intoxicating, at least once he’d worked through the initial difficult period of learning to deny himself so he could maintain control.
There’s no one to hunt out here,
he thought. He eyed Razel, and thought of Fon.
Yet.
“
Well, we have another problem,” he said. “If this is the Red Hand we’re talking about, we’ll have more than three of them to contend with, since the smallest organized party I’ve ever heard of is thirteen. And that’s assuming it’s just one group.”
“
And then there’s the Princess,” Argus added. “There’s no telling who or what she has with her. Gallaean, for certain, and maybe others.”
Argus kicked the dirt in frustration, and Razel watched him with concern. Slayne saw Jar’rod sitting cross-legged on a rug as he entered one of his strange dream trances. Brutus wandered the hillside, dragging his massive sword behind him, his oversized nostrils taking in the desert smells. The creature scowled as it looked around for something to kill.
I know how you feel, big guy.
“
You’re not telling us something, Argus,” Slayne said. “Gallaean…as in Gallaean Stohrmshrike? He’s no friend of Kala’s, unless they suddenly have something in common the rest of us don’t know about.”
Argus breathed in sharply and gave Slayne a deadly look. He clearly hadn’t intended to let the name slip. A bone-chilling aura of power surrounded the Veilwarden, and for the first time that entire mission he felt like he was getting a glimpse at the boy’s true potential. Argus might not have been an imposing personality but he yielded a tremendous amount of raw power, and if he ever developed anything resembling a killer instinct he’d become an incredibly dangerous man.
“Stop asking questions, Marros,” Argus said. “That’s not what you’re here for.” He looked at Slayne and Razel, and after a moment he laughed angrily to himself. “But I should have told you,” he said. “Even though I wasn’t supposed to.” He sighed, and looked out at the darkness of the desert wastes. “Gallaean Stohrmshrike, outlaw priest and murderer, has recently made contact with a known associate of Princess Azaean’s, a criminal Drage Veilwarden called Crogas the Red.”
“
Oh, that’s
wonderful
,” Slayne said. “Crogas is well-connected. With his resources Kala might have a small army waiting for us.” He laughed, but Argus and Razel didn’t seem to find the humor. “So…what do we do?” he asked.
“
Well,” Argus said, “we don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, but depending on how well the Princess is being protected I’d like to try and capture her without raising an alarm.”
“
That might be difficult,” Slayne said. “This trail leads towards Corinth.”
“
And if Kala has any military forces at her disposal...” Razel said.
“
Then she’ll make sure it’s as fortified as possible,” Slayne finished. “Any idea what she’s doing there?”
“
Opening old wounds,” Argus said, and though Slayne and Razel both gave him questioning looks he didn’t say anything more about it. “We’ll keep following the trail,” he said. “See if we wind up in Corinth, or if Ijanna sidetracks to somewhere else. We don’t know for sure that the Princess is in the city, only that Ijanna is headed in that general direction.”
“
Kala’s there,” Slayne said. “Where else would she be, and what else would she be doing other than digging up Galladorian relics?”
“
Can we alert Colonel Blackhall?” Razel asked, much to Slayne and Argus’ surprise. “If Kala has any sort of fighting force, I don’t think it would be wise of us to get trapped out here without help.”
“
They’ll have to travel overland to reach us,” Argus said. “Even if we can get
cutgates
working, you can only move a dozen people at a time. Aaric won’t mobilize until it’s clear we need support…”
“
And by that time it’ll be too late,” Razel said. “I think we can agree this part of the plan wasn’t very well thought out.”
“
Utilizing Ebonmark’s forces is meant to be a last resort,” Argus said, clearly exasperated. “We didn’t expect to be running into any military presence, and we still don’t know that we will.”
“
So we really are on our own,” Razel said with a bitter smile.
“
It sure seems that way,” Slayne said. “Shit.”
They made camp for the night. Argus positioned his tent near Brutus; evidently he could use the Veil to calm the troll enough that it could actually sleep through the night, when normally the beasts had difficulty resisting their drive to slaughter long enough to actually get any rest. While he, Razel, Fon and Jar’rod each kept their separate tents, the dozen Black Eagles bunked up in twos and threes.
Slayne didn’t want anyone getting too comfortable, as they intended to move out at first light. Kost, Navis and Drayke had first watch, positioned in the shadows with such expertise they would have been completely invisible to Slayne had he not known where to look for them.
He sat on the side of the hill, his open tent behind him in the shadow of a jagged stone that looked like some sort of misshapen giant’s skull. Slayne chewed on a piece of jerky and looked out across the sea of dunes. The possibility of running into the Red Hand had come as something of a surprise, but the more he thought about the inevitability of killing Bloodspeakers the more he relished the notion. It had been far too long. All his life he’d hunted them. He had nothing against their kind, not really, but men had always put money in his pockets to track and kill them, and after so much time spent doing just that he’d started to view them as less than human. Something about them seemed dirty to him...diseased. They lived short lives to begin with, tainting the air with their soiled magic every time they so much as drew breath. He was doing them a favor.
Then why in the hell do I hear them screaming in my dreams?
The hunger was growing. It was getting harder to hold it in, but he knew he had to, at least for a little while longer. There were others like him out there, wolf-hearted creatures waiting in the darkness, and he felt an instinctual drive to hunt them down and kill them. The slaking thirst for blood had put him on edge, but he knew the worst of it would pass.
He watched Razel, Fon and Malei with a lustful heart and a hard cock, and it was all he could do to contain himself. He badly wanted to rip into them, all three of them, but it would be best if he waited to satiate his hunger on more suitable targets. Like the Red Hand.
I owe you bastards
, he thought.
He stared out into the hot night. Copper and black clouds hung low in the sky, and the light from orange flames danced across the camp below. Slayne finished his jerky, ate a hard-boiled egg and sipped from a jug of water, hoping to keep his senses clear.
“Slayne.”
It was Malei, and Slayne’s throat tightened as she approached. One of the newest members of the Black Eagles, Malei held the distinction of being one of the only non-Jlantrians he’d ever chosen for his team. She was an Islander from Kore’lee, with creamy coffee-colored skin and almond-shaped eyes. Malei was lithe and thin, barely twenty years old, with braided black hair that hung loose down around her shoulders and the moistest lips he’d ever seen. She’d been recommended by Syn, one of his team who’d spent a good deal of time in the Scorpion Isles; Syn was dead now, killed by Azander Dane beneath Black Sun. The first time Slayne had seen Malei fight he knew she was a natural. She was ruthless and calculating, swift and dangerous, with a sweet manner and disposition that in no way betrayed the hardened killer inside.
He watched her approach, growling at himself for the tightness in his chest and the blood flowing to his prick. He held his cloak ahead of him to try and keep his arousal concealed.
“
What is it?” he asked.
“
I came to tell you we have the watch shifts covered tonight,” she said. “You can get some rest.”