‘A little worn from battle, are you?’ one of the guards asked me disdainfully.
He had approached from behind and now held out one hand with a tiny ball of green flame dancing upon it. It gave just enough light to find our way through the slumbering bodies. Each person had a cot and a barrel of supplies. Some, clearly of higher rank, had a wooden deck with a larger bed, a chest and two chairs to themselves. The tent was vast, held up by an immense sunbark trunk in the centre and many metal poles and ropes on the sides. It could easily have housed a thousand people lying down. What’s more, towards the edges I could now make out bunks of up to four levels. There were two open flaps on the far side of the tent.
‘Put that splittin light away,’ I told the guard grumpily, holding my head. ‘I do not need your aid to find my sorry excuse for a bed.’
Before he snuffed the light, I attempted to memorise a clear path to one of the exits. I picked my way slowly through the sleeping bodies, straining my eyesight to its limit. I reached the far side successfully and came out into the fresh air with some relief. To my right was yet another cluster of oil barrels.
‘They’ve got them spread throughout half the camp,’ I said to Ciera and Tiaro, ‘obviously utilising every bit of space they have.’
‘That makes things difficult,’ Ciera replied.
I cursed under my breath. Now what? To my left were more Zeikas around a large bonfire, performing some kind of ritual with a steaming purple liquid. To my right were more barrels, which clustered all the way up against another large tent. Looking through my eyes, the Rada-kin informed me that it bore the Reltic symbols for ‘quartermaster’.
I squeezed past a small wooden building and listened closely through the flaps of a second tent. There were voices raised within and the sound of chains dragging.
Hearing something outside, I stood up straight and moved forward. A group of four or five Zeikas passed me, talking quietly. There was blood across one of their belts, but he didn’t seem to be in pain. I gulped. When I finally find Jaalta, will she be in any state to travel? As I rounded the corner of the tent and reached the open front, I saw a cluster of at least fifty men. They were pointing, laughing and staring hungrily at whatever was going on inside the tent.
Drawn out wailing and a sickening crunch sounded from within. Bile rushed into my throat at the sight of the seven or eight captive Tanzans. The Zeikas seemed to be jostling with each other and vying to get a turn. More prisoners were being dragged in along the path behind me. I tried not to look any of them in the eye. Even unwillingly, they might give me away and I doubted I could rescue them all.
Towards the back of the tent was a legion commander in full garb, a tall and muscular Zeika with black hair reaching down to his waist. Three skyearl-claw spikes stuck up from each of his pauldrons and a heavy mace rested across his back.
He and three others talked casually while drinking something thick and red from a shared tankard. I tried to ignore the sounds of the Tanzans, but my entire body was rigid with the effort. It felt as if my teeth would break from being clenched so hard. What if I could hide somewhere around the back and confuse a dragon or two? I could make them come down here and kill these butchers… but there would only be more… and it would only be a matter of time before I was found. Focus… focus… !
Back at the landing spot, Ciera, Jett and Ptemais paced restlessly. Amadeus was also receiving many of my mental projections and relaying them to Tyba.
‘You must stop communicating with us,’ Amadeus said. ‘I know it comes as naturally to you as breath, but think about it. If Jaalta’s abilities are being tapped, then they will know there is someone nearby. As long as you are reaching out to us, you will be like a beacon. The one doing the waverading will sense you. You must shut the waves down completely. Close your mind.’
Close my mind? He wanted me to be cut off and alone in this place?
‘Have you not done this before?’
‘I have,’ I said, remembering the private time I had spent with Lira. I had been a fool, then, but I could re-use that skill now.
‘Goodbye,’ I said to my translator, my kin and Amadeus.
Being careful not to show any emotion on my face, I brought Halduronlei to my mind, called upon Krii for help and mentally pulled down every barrier I could think of. There would be no distractions, nothing in my mind but my own thoughts.
‘There are no waves,’ I said to myself. ‘There’s only me.’
Presences and feelings I hadn’t even been aware I was sensing faded away. All became still and calm in my mind. It was the loneliest I had been since before bonding with Rekala.
It was like when I was alone in the woods near Jaria, gathering herbs and foodstuffs for Bessed. Peaceful yet, somehow, empty. There, I had been nothing but the quartermaster’s apprentice. Here, I was a specially-gifted warrior; the only person who could free Jaalta.
Now was the time I needed my kin. Here I was with an insurmountable task before me. Not only did I have no help from anyone else, but I couldn’t even share my experiences, relying on the waves for mental support and advice. It was all up to me.
‘Alrudo san yu ran,’ a big, hairy Zeika challenged me from behind. I jabbed him with my elbow as he passed and growled at him.
‘Haf-u rin doso jenRada?’ he snarled back.
Hearing the word ‘Rada’ made chills go down my spine. Have they discovered me already? I ignored him and he pushed forward, cursing loudly. I pretended to be interested in what was going on inside the tent and pressed in for a closer view. It was then that I saw Jaalta.
Huddled beneath the legion commander was a bloodied, manacled form, lying on her side with her neck bent awkwardly over a wooden plate. She was dressed in mere shreds of what had been her proud, Anzaii armour. The stately flax shirt had been stretched and torn, leaving most of her chest and neck bare. Bandages had been wrapped hastily around her. The mottled scar across her throat was stained with fresh blood. She lay so limply that I thought she might be dead. After what I had seen, that would probably have been a boon.
‘Stop thinking like Corypha,’ I told myself.
It was some time before the legion commander had consumed his fill of whatever was in the shared tankard. He sat down in a throne-like metal chair and gestured at one of his underlings. The person ducked out of the tent, returning momentarily with a buxom female in a gauzy green robe. Her partially-naked body drew the eye of every Zeika in the vicinity and I sensed that here was a female who could only be touched by one person.
‘Vasduro sensei, hass,’ the legion commander said to her. ‘Viska doro neph-tinar lakt on ef tepturo. Visko ela ais noi est.’
The witch was young, but the intelligence in her eyes unmistakable. She bent to roll Jaalta over and cut off a piece of her hair.
‘Allaph nal trygal?’ she asked.
The legion commander nodded, handing her the tankard they had been drinking from.
‘Aye,’ said the witch, ‘ephan nalla ka.’
‘Arak,’ he replied sternly.
The witch drank from the tankard. Red liquid ran freely over her chin. The witch dropped Jaalta’s hair into a cast iron pot that was positioned over a small brazier. She poured the rest of the liquid from the tankard over it and chanted. Green flames burst forth at her fingertips and she released the glowing balls into the pot. They seemed to liquefy before our very eyes, turning into a greenish molten metal. The liquid bubbled and a putrid smell arose.
Many of the Zeikas who had been occupying themselves with the captured Tanzans turned to watch.
‘Allarvo kareno est ok irin oost,’ the legion commander said boastfully, when it was clear the witch’s incantations were working.
I guessed from his tone that it was some kind of announcement or call to attention to witness what was going on. I strained to see over the heads of those in front of me. There were now over a hundred Zeikas crowded before the harledo. The liquid, hair and metal in the pot slowly merged leaving the mixture a sickly brown mass.
The legion commander said something else, raising his hands up high in worship. His eyes rolled up into his head and he shouted something to Zei in exultation. Jaalta stirred beneath his feet and scrabbled with her hands. Despite the noise from the gathered Zeikas, the hoarseness of her breathing reached me. I wished I could react, do something… would this process kill her? If so, why bandage her? Surely that meant they needed her alive. My thoughts raced… was now the time to act? How could I with all these people around?
My right hand was thrust deep inside my pocket, my fist clenched around the bundle of wicks and flint stones I had stashed there. Under my armour there were six steel knives in various places. Maybe if I waited I could free enough of the Tanzans who could still walk to light all of the oil barrel stockpiles. Then we could grab Jaalta and get out there. But now this…
I watched in horror as the witch threw a handful of black dust into the bubbling pot. A small explosion threw smoke into the air. I thought I sensed a dark presence flowing into the pot.
When the smoke finally cleared, the witch had pincers in her hands and was pulling two lumps of malleable metal from the pot. A blacksmith nearby had fitted two thin, metal cuffs over the legion commander’s wrists and then took them off again. The witch laid the green, sticky lumps over each metal cuff. With the cuffs as a guide, both the blacksmith and the witch took a hammer and worked the lumps into an even, circular shape. Before the metal had cooled completely, they cut some grooves and rested five or six items in each. I recognised at least two skyearl teeth, the claws of dead Rada-kin, a couple of leaves from a sapphire tree and gems that could have been from a Tolite weapon.
After all the snippets and rumours I’d heard about waverade artefacts it seemed unreal to be seeing it come to pass. Some of the Zeikas watched in rapt fascination while others had returned to their previous amusement with the Tanzan prisoners.
Jaalta whimpered and squirmed on the ground. Whether she was in pain from her injuries or suffering from the witch’s actions, I could not tell.
After a long wait, the witch dipped the wristguards into a barrel of liquid. Steam rose off them, and a faint green fire burned from the centre of each wristguard. Although the wristguards were still hot, the witch said something to the legion commander and passed them to him.
He nodded, pursed his lips and slid each one onto his wrists. He roared in pain and the smell of burning hair and flesh filled the already rancid-smelling tent. The flames on the wristguards burned brighter and Jaalta’s damaged throat actually managed to produce a strangulated cry. She pressed her hands to either side of her head and began pounding it against the ground.
‘What can I do? What can I do? Krii this can’t be happening. What can I do?’ I prayed fervently.
Suddenly the loneliness I had felt before melted away. Hearing a distant howling noise, I looked sharply around. Nobody else had noticed it. Although I couldn’t sense him like I sensed my kindred, I knew Krii was with me and, to my surprise, he counselled me to wait. I could hardly believe it, but Krii confirmed now was not the time to act.
One of the Zeikas grabbed Jaalta and strapped her down to the wooden pallet beneath her. With arms, hands, legs, feet and head tied down, she could only lie there and let the waverade take place. Even now the legion commander was violating her, turning them both into psions. His eyes were closed and he babbled rapidly in Reltic. Soldiers ran in all directions, presumably rushing to tell those on the front lines what they had learned from their enemy’s waves.
Perhaps I should open myself to the waves just for a moment and try to warn everybody to stop communicating important information via the waves. No. Just wait.
It seemed like forever before the legion commander stopped shouting. Then he suddenly walked forward toward me. My heart stood still. Everything depended on me… If he could somehow sense me…
He passed me by, shaking his fists in the air and grinning widely. The Zeikas around me followed in his wake, abandoning whatever pleasures and rest they were here for. Just like that, the harledo cleared out, not a single Zeika left. Glancing down the pathway, I could see that the bonfire had been likewise abandoned. I hesitated, wondering if it was plausible for me to stay behind. Now was my chance…
As the ruckus died down, I looked carefully around to make sure no Zeikas remained. Carefully, quietly, I approached Jaalta. She winced as my shadow fell over her, then peered at me more closely. The recognition in her eyes was tipped with such pain that I drew back. Did she wish we hadn’t tried to rescue her? Would she have preferred death? Surely not. I had never seen one of the viserion packets in her gear. I opened her left hand. Sure enough, there was one of Corypha’s packets—waxed paper marked with three leaf symbols.
I shook my head at her, saying, ‘I’m going to get you out of here.’
Tears filled her eyes and she whispered the words, ‘too late’.
‘Can you sense him?’ I asked.
She nodded, eyes going wide with anxiety.
‘Close down your waves,’ I suggested.
She shook her head and mouthed the words ‘I cannot’. Clearly the whispering caused her great pain. I took the packet from her hand, ripped it open and tipped its contents onto the ground.
‘No matter,’ I replied. ‘We’ll find another way.’
I unstrapped her and helped her to sit up. She was unable to take her eyes away from the spilt viserion.
‘We’re going to light the oil barrels,’ I told her quietly, ‘and escape.’
‘What about them?’ she mouthed, gesturing at the other Tanzans.
I licked my lips nervously. ‘Maybe they can help.’ Or maybe they’d be a liability.
Jaalta gripped my shoulder with one hand. ‘I didn’t think anyone would come,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know how you did it.’
‘We’re not done yet,’ I replied grimly.
Chapter Nineteen—Bloodlust
A
ll but five of the Tanzan prisoners had perished in the fervent cruelty of the Zeikas. The survivors were all men, still wearing most of their armour. I unshackled and helped each of them to their feet. None of them were Anzaii, Sleffion, Tolite or Rada. I surmised they were footmen or perhaps town militia.