THE SHADOWLORD (33 page)

"Is he alive?" Tarsis asked, humiliated he had walked into a trap.

Aluino looked toward Jaelan. "I think so, but he's bleeding badly."

Twenty feet away, unconscious and pale, the Shadowlord lay spread-eagle on the ground.

"The prophet-be-damned arrow was tipped in Maiden's Briar," Tarsis said from beneath clenched teeth. "He's barely over the first dose the bastards gave him!"

"Where's his lady?" Aluino asked. "That'll be the first thing he'll ask when he regains consciousness."

"She's safe with Sulaimon."

"What the hell's happening?" Aluino asked. "Has Gehenna lost what little mind he has?"

"They're going to send the lad to Ghurn for a year," Tarsis replied. "They're planning something evil so they need to get rid of him for a while."

Tarsis grunted as the guards lifted him and Aluino to their feet. Around them, two Death Lords lay dead in pools of blood while others were lashed securely to handy posts and trees. Staggering against the vicious push a guard gave him, Tarsis snarled like a cornered tiger.

"Behave yourself, old man," the guard said and guffawed, "or you'll join those two as they make Peace with the Wind."

"Murderers!" Aluino hawked a wad of phlegm at the guard's boot. A backward slap of the guard's hand sent the Diabolusian crashing against Tarsis, who stumbled beneath the onslaught.

"Riders coming," Tarsis mumbled.

Aluino grimaced. "I'll wager that's Hell's spawn, himself, coming to make sure Jaelan is trussed up like a feast goose."

"I don't bet on sure things, greaser."

At the north end of Uadjit, the villagers stood clustered, their eyes glazed, their mouths slack, still under the spell of Gehenna's Healer's hypnotic control. Nothing registered with them as Temple Guards strolled by, Death Lords cursed, or harnesses jingled as Gehenna and his personal guard rode into the square.

The Prelate of Justice sat astride his mount as Sekhem Neter headed toward him. "Everything under control Sekhem?"

The Chief Temple Guard looked to where Jaelan lay. "I made sure Ben-Ashaman would not escape."

"Did he put up much resistance?"

"He knew he was outnumbered," Sekhem bragged.

"Liar! You shot him in the back, you sniveling coward!" Aluino shouted, his accusation echoed by the remaining Death Lords.

"We were never given a chance to fight!" one Death Lord said.

Gehenna laughed. "He'll have plenty of time to fight in Ghurn." He bent over in the saddle. "Have your second-in-command take the Shadowlord's men to Abbadon. On the way, make sure they closely inspect the cliffs at Kharonis."

Sekhem smiled brutally. "As you wish, Milord." He nodded toward the villagers. "What of them?"

"Put them to the sword. Every man, woman, and child." He searched the crowd. "I do not see the one called Samiel. Where is he?"

Fear passed over Sekhem's face. "We've not been able to find him. I'm told he was not in the village when we arrived."

"Find him!" Gehenna barked. "I want nothing left alive in this place when we take Ben-Ashaman to Ghurn Colony. I want it put about that he and his men slew the villagers and I ordered the Death Lords executed for daring such evil."

"We're not going to live to insult one another again," Aluino said out of the side of his mouth.

"You reckon?" Tarsis pulled at the iron manacles that clamped his elbows together and refused to wince at the pain.

"Though I have no love for the people of this village, I hate to see them butchered." Aluino looked toward the cache of weapons, taken from him and the Death Lords. "Especially with my own sword!"

A groan from Jaelan drew Gehenna's attention. The Prelate of Justice climbed down from his horse, tugging the expensive leather gloves from his hands. He nudged the Shadowlord with his boot. "Are you awake?" he inquired in a pleasant voice.

Jaelan's amber eyes opened, closed, then opened again as he struggled to swim his way up through whatever undulating waves of fever had him in steel talons.

Gehenna swept aside his robe and hunkered down. "Do you know where you are?"

Jaelan tried to get up, but the effort nearly pushed him over the edge into darkness. His shoulder throbbed unmercifully. Though the arrow had been removed, the iron head had broken off and the wound seeped blood.

"I imagine that hurts." Gehenna wiggled what was left of the wooden bolt. The gasp that issued from the Shadowlord's throat seemed to please the Prelate. "Aye, I can see it does."

"Another rider," Tarsis said.

"Samiel," Aluino sighed. "I had hoped he would not return."

Tarsis looked at the younger man. "Is he the rebel contact here?"

Aluino shrugged. "You might as well know, since none of us are going to live to tell of it."

"By the Prophet's beard," Tarsis said after a low whistle. "I thought the old man hated Jael as much as the rest of the village."

"The old man loves his son. It was best the villagers thought he didn't."

"And Jaelan is Asim?"

"For what good that knowledge will do you, old man."

Tarsis sniffed. "The bantling could have told me. I can keep a secret."

"He wanted you safe."

"Didn't care about you, though, did he?" Tarsis chuckled.

"That may be the Shadowlord's sire," Sekhem said, pointing at the billowing dust moving toward them from the East.

"Wait until we have him, too, before you set my orders in motion," Gehenna said. "I want Jaelan to witness the deaths of the three he cares for the most, outside the female."

A shudder ran through Jaelan. He opened his eyes wide, digging his hands into the hot sand to try to stay awake. In his heart, he knew none of them would survive unless he could fight the poison or bargain with Gehenna. He opened his mouth to speak, but Sekhem Neter's next words shocked him so badly, he nearly pitched into unconsciousness.

"That's not the old man," Sekhem gasped. "It's Ben-Ashaman's Amazeen!"

Aradia rode as fast as the sleek Rysalian stallion could gallop. The animal's powerful muscles, its heavy hoofs and long stride, ate up the distance between her and the village. The closer she got to Uadjit, the deeper the fear grew in her belly. Her hands clenched the reins as she bent forward over the neck of the sleek mount. For the first time in her life, with knees pressing firmly, heels drumming against the sweating flanks, she found herself locked in a battle with destiny and fate.

She could make out familiar faces of some of the villagers, but their expressions denied recognition. Only the Temple Guards turned decisive eyes toward her, swords raised to block her entry.

"Stand down!" a gruff voice shouted.

Aradia realized the order had been given to allow her approach. Reluctantly, Temple Guards moved out of her way, though they glared as she galloped past.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sekhem Neter and knew the man standing beside him must be Gehenna Dakar. Their ill-disguised gloats reminded her of her cat, Bitsy, when it cornered a mouse.

She saw Jaelan's men chained and frowned when she also noted Alunio and Tarsis manacled. Then she saw her husband, lying in blood, his wide amber eyes staring at the sky.

"Jaelan!" she screamed.

Acting without thought, she sawed brutally on the stallion's reins, bringing him to a rearing stop. His shrill whinny of protest cut through the air along with his flailing hooves. Like a skilled acrobat, Aradia flipped backward from the mount and landed on her feet, knees flexed, hands in front of her.

A guard chuckled. "You're just in time to entertain us, wench! Come here and let me show you what a real man can do!"

Ignoring the jibe and the coarse male laughter that accompanied it, Aradia ran to her husband's and knelt beside him. His fixed stare broke her heart. She threw herself over his chest, her wail of despair bringing a loud cry of anguish from the restrained Death Lords.

The faint movement of breath against her neck broke the grief shattering her heart. Aradia straightened, staring into his pale face. His slow blink became the most precious thing she'd ever seen.

"Praise Alluvia!" she whispered, tears flooding her eyes. "I thought you were dead."

"He might as well be, you useless woman." Dakar smirked as he made a motion with his hand. "He's lost to you!"

A rough hand on her arm yanked her to her feet. She knew an instant of savagery that would have made her ancestors proud. Even as the guard jerked her away from her husband, her free hand, her blade hand, went to the sheath at her hip and came away with gleaming steel. Pivoting on her left foot, she buried the dagger to the hilt in the gut of the man who dared touch her. She ripped her weapon upward in her attacker's belly, spilling the screaming man's innards as she pushed him away, pulling her blade free.

Another guard rushed her, howling in agony as her dagger opened a deep gash across his chest. He dropped his sword and fell.

A third guard stumbled away minus a hand after Aradia hooked a toe under the fallen guard's sword, kicked it into the air, grabbed the hilt, and made effective use of the bloody weapon with a backward swing.

"Take her!" Dakar shouted. "I want her alive!"

Five guards rushed forward, eyes blazing, intent on capturing her. Two met the sweeping slash of Aradia's sword, heads rolling beneath the stomping hooves of her mount as the stallion became frenzied by the smell of blood. Another man found himself impaled upon her sword's steel tip, his look of astonishment almost comical.

"You're mine, bitch!" the fourth guard promised as he and his partner circled Aradia.

Aradia barely noticed as the guard began to levitate. She noted his astonishment, and in her heart, realized someone just as vicious as she dealt with that enemy. Her narrowed gaze went to the fifth guard, nervously licking his lips.

"You'd best make your Peace with the Wind, little man," she taunted her opponent, "for you are about to meet the Gatherer."

The guard backed away, alternating his twitching gaze from the point of Aradia's dagger to the feet of his partner, disappearing upward and out of sight. He swallowed loudly, seemingly oblivious to the goading of his fellow guards encouraging him to rush Aradia. He made a half-hearted feint here and there, but jumped backward, well away from the negligent swath of the blade aimed at him.

"Are you going to fight or run, towel head?" Aradia inquired.

The shriek of the elevating man as he slammed earthward broke the fifth guard's courage. He threw down his sword and ran, hopping over his partner's broken body and sprinting into the desert.

"Five hundred quilons to the man who brings her down!" Dakar bellowed to the remaining guards. "And her body to you for as long as she draws breath!"

Without a second thought, Aradia flipped over her dagger so that the business end pointed toward her and lay expertly in her palm. She released the deadly missile with undeniable accuracy. It sailed through the air, landing with a wet thud in Gehenna Dakar's chest. The evil one dropped to his knees, his hands clawing at his torso.

"No man save the Shadowlord takes me!" Aradia rushed forward and jerked a new blade from the sheath of a dead Temple Guard.

"Kill her, Neter!" Dakar mumbled, bloody froth forming on his lips before he pitched face-down into the sand.

His eyes wide with fear, Sekhem Neter raised his war maul. But the whisper of a second blade that seemed to materialize out of nowhere made swift passage into his spine. The coward collapsed like a felled bird and shrieked like a young girl.

Aradia realized her husband's supernatural power had hurled the blade into Neter's back. She glanced his way as swords and daggers, mauls and caltrops, pikes and crossbows flew through the air like flimsy paper and turned in a whirlwind. Swirling above their heads, the weapons posed a lethal threat to the Temple Guards, now weaponless. Scrambling away from the deadly twister, they pushed one another aside to flee the impending doom.

Laughing, Aradia hunkered down beside her husband. She put her trembling hands on his cheeks. "Best cast those weapons far from here, warrior."

With the last of his strength, Jaelan flung the weapons miles away into the desert, and with the effort, nearly succumbed to the darkness creeping up on him.

"Protect them,
aziza
..."

"The guards?" Aradia asked. "I'd just as soon--"

"My people. Neter's men have been ordered to put them to death. If even one guard remains alive, others will come back and slay every villager."

"Be quiet, warrior. You're--"

"They're mine to protect, Aradia...thus they are
your
duty, as well. See to them, Milady...I've done all I can..."

Seeing the worry on his face overrode the fury pulsing through Aradia's heart. Left to her own devices, she would've allowed Dakar's men to slay the villagers. But Jaelan's concern, his fear for those who had shunned him, tugged at her conscience. She looked at the guards slipping steadily toward the villagers.

"Stop those guards!" Aradia shouted at the people of Uadjit, who stared with glazed eyes. "Are you not Asim's men? Are you not rebels? Fight for your freedom! Fight for your lives!"

"They're under my control!" Healer Hajib Kielos said with a gloating note. He spoke, half-crouching, from the safety of a doorway. "They will not--"

Aradia stood to face him, her eyes wide with the fever of battle. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides as she took a warning step toward him. Her lips drew back over gnashing teeth, bared like those of a weretigress ready to pounce.

"Release your hold on them, or you'll die a thousand deaths before I'm finished with you!" Aradia said.

"I'll do nothing of the kind." The Healer crossed his arms over his chest and grinned hatefully.

"Then die, you piece of offal!"

With the flick of her hand, Aradia hurled her borrowed dagger through the air. With an admonishing pout on his face, the Healer looked down at the blade's handle protruding from his chest, then slid to his ass in the doorway. His large head soon fell to a chest that had ceased to draw breath.

"Awake, people of Uadjit!" Aradia shouted. "Save yourselves!"