Chains of Mist (40 page)

As Drogni watched the Traika go, he wondered if he had made the right choice. He had fought in many battles and studied hundreds more. He knew that there were instances where a single act of mercy could lead to an enduring peace, but he didn’t know if this was one of them. The presence of magic muddled everything. For his part, he would be glad to be rid of this world.
Only one more thing to do. Let’s do it and go home.

Makree’s face was an expressionless mask.
If you were in charge, what would you have done?
asked Drogni silently. But the answer to that question was irrelevant; Makree was not in charge, and Drogni was. He had made the choice, and he would live with it. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They walked in silence through the night, and soon the ground began to slope upwards as they came to the foot of Nembane Mountain. The giant peak was even more imposing up close, rising so high that it vanished into the clouds. Drogni could well imagine all manner of nefarious sorcery brewing within its depths.

“Admiral,” said Makree. The other soldier’s voice was quiet, sounding somehow detached. Drogni turned to face his companion. Makree’s gaze was steady, outwardly calm…but beneath that calm lurked something that might have been fear. “I will lead us from here,” Makree continued in that same quiet tone.

“Lead us to what?”

“We are not just looking for the mountain,” said Makree. “We need to go
beneath
the mountain—and to do that, we need an entrance. A door, hewn into the rock itself, leading deep into the planet. The mountain’s base is huge, and there is no path to this door. But I know where it is.”

“You do, do you?” Drogni felt his irritation rising. He thought that Makree had come fully clean about everything he’d been hiding, but obviously he’d been wrong
.
“And how exactly is that?”

“I know for the same reason that I know this world’s language,” said Makree. “There are eight entrances, and I know them all. The tunnels beneath the mountain are nearly endless, a labyrinth within which you could wander for days, weeks, even years. But there are maps, shown to me by the man I told you of, the man with no name. I know the paths we must take.” He paused for a moment. “I know the way because I
must
know. Because it has become my purpose to know.” He fell silent, breaking off his gaze and turning instead to stare at the mountain looming above them.

“Your purpose—” began Drogni angrily, then cut himself off. There was something in Makree’s voice, something in his stance, that robbed the fire from Drogni’s retort. The other soldier sounded…lost. And very, very alone.
He thinks he’s going to die here
, Drogni reminded himself.
And yet he continues on. In light of that, I can’t blame him for being a little absentminded. I don’t like it…but I can forgive it. Yeah, he should have told me this already, but he knows he’s made a mistake; the last thing he needs is me chewing his head off for it.
“Alright, soldier,” he continued, the anger gone from his voice. “Lead the way.”

They walked for several minutes, Makree silently leading, Drogni silently following. For a while, the verdant forest surrounded them, lush and full of life. Then the terrain abruptly changed, as if they had crossed over some invisible boundary into another world. There were no more trees, bushes, even grass—everything living disappeared, replaced by a lifeless blanket of jagged white stones. Makree led them on, his path unerring, and they picked their way through what was now a wasteland.

Strapped across Drogni’s back, the Mari’eth blade began to pulse with a chill heartbeat. The air felt stale in his mouth.

They took a few more steps, and Drogni saw their destination. A stark rock wall stood ahead of them, and in it was a giant crack, twice the height of a man. Beyond the crack was a tunnel, stretching back like a portal to the underworld, a grim entrance leading to a place of death and foreboding.

They walked up to the opening and stopped. “There,” said Makree, though the word was quite unnecessary. Drogni could already feel a
pull
emanating from the crevice; he could practically feel Rokan Sellas’s presence inviting him in—in and down.

Drogni stared into the dark passageway. He could see nothing within except an endless expanse of emptiness. Unbidden, a dozen images sprung to his mind, terrible creatures of myth and horror that could be lurking inside, but they quickly faded. Save for one—the face of a man, split by a long white scar. The man laughed and demonic fire burned from his eyes.

Rokan Sellas. I’m coming for you, you bastard. Fifteen years late, but I’m coming to finish what I started.

Beneath Nembane Mountain, this finally ends.

-19-

Austin, his face streaked with blood and sweat, tripped on a root and fell heavily. He scrambled back to his feet, ignoring the jagged knives of pain that shot through him. Fear lent an almost inhuman urgency to his movements. Tree branches slapped against his face and the thorny juraa
tendrils scraped vicious gouges across his legs and arms, but he barely felt anything. The need for flight—the need to carry himself as far away as possible from the horrors he had witnessed—overrode everything as he continued his panicked dash.

As he ran, his mind returned to the scene he had left behind. How could this have happened? How could everything have gone so wrong, so quickly?

Dar’katal
Ulkar had sounded so confident, when he had called upon his warriors for vengeance. His voice had rung like the gong of war, stoking the fires of vengeance in a hundred hearts, fires that for half a decade had lain dormant but not quite extinguished. Standing before them, spear in one hand and stone-bladed sword in the other, he had been the very image of the battle kings who strode proudly in every people’s legends. He had told them that, with the fury of justice on their side, they could not lose. And they had believed him.

Raising his twin weapons high in the air,
Dar’katal
Ulkar had proclaimed himself
fai’la’if
. And he had led the Belayas to war.

To war? No. He had led the Belayas to their deaths.

And Austin remembered…

The plan had been simple. The
Dar’katal
had assured them that, with surprise and nightfall on their side, they would sweep through the Traika village and be gone before their enemies could retaliate. They were not there to take prisoners or steal provisions, enterprises which would only delay their escape and enable the Traika to mobilize their warriors. They were there for one purpose, and one purpose only.

To avenge the
Dar’katal
’s son by killing any and all in their path.

With that singular goal in their minds, and with slaughter in their hearts, the Belayas had marched towards the Traika. They moved like ghosts through the dark forests, neither speaking nor stopping, transformed from thinking men into mindless machines of battle. Austin had done his best to keep up, though he knew that he had only done so because they were restraining their pace. Waiting for him, so that when they reached their goal he would be there to lead the attack.

Austin would have wondered about such deference, which was such an abrupt reversal from their initial treatment of him, but for the words that the
Dar’katal
had spoken to him just before they left. An imposing figure, not as tall as his men but far broader, with a fierce shock of deep black hair and an angular face that seemed sharp enough to cut through the long spear he held, he had looked straight at Austin. “Stranger, I have seen you, practicing up on the hilltop, with your weapon of light that burns the very air before it. I know that you slew the bull fenail in single combat—a feat scarcely even imagined, let alone performed in reality. You know the art of battle, better than any I have ever known, and when we are upon our enemy your hand will be the hammer of our attack. My men know your worth; they know your skill, and they will follow you into battle. Lead us against the
a’dia
, stranger, unleash your magic blade upon our foes, and after the Traika are dead I will personally lead you to the foot of Kil’la’ril. That is my word, my unbreakable bond.”

And Ulkar had meant it. A promise to deliver the one thing Austin needed, the thing that Taralen had been unable to provide. It should have raised Austin’s heart. Yet as he followed the Belayas, he did not feel hopeful, not happy, not determined. He did not think of Justin, and how his steps were finally taking him towards rescuing his friend.

Instead, his thoughts were on the Traika, and on the slaughter he was about to unleash upon them. His blade, a weapon that symbolized peace throughout the Federation, would now be used as a tool of war. His pistols would wreak death on a people completely unprepared to fight such technology. He
himself would now be turned into an instrument of destruction. And why? For justice? For honor?

The
Dar’katal
said that was their purpose, and his men believed it. But to Austin, it did not feel that way. It felt only like slaughter. And it sickened him that he had stooped to such a level.

Yet he marched on. And he never considered turning back. This was not just for the
Dar’katal
and his son. This was for Justin, for the chance to save him from a fate that he did not deserve. No matter the cost.

At last they came upon the Traika village. Although larger by far than that of the Belayas, the Traika settlement was much less fortified. It was walled, but there were no defensive towers, and the north wall was waist-high and only fifty or so meters from the forest. With less open ground to cover, they could reach the village in moments and be inside before an alarm could be raised. They had already killed several Traika scouts, a minor bloodletting that had scarcely served to whet their appetite for death. Before them sat an entire village, fat and unaware, primed for attack. Helpless before the Belayas spears and arrows.

Or so they thought. They should have sensed the trap and fled while they had still had the chance. The whole approach had been too easy, and then to come upon a village with nary a guard or watchman? They should have known better.

But, as was always the case, the fires of fury left little room for rational thinking. They could not see what should have been obvious, blinded by the very anger that they believed would make them strong.

If
Sho’nal
Taralen had been with them, he would have seen it. He would have warned them to flee, and while they might not have listened, they might have at least been more wary.

But the
Sho’nal
was not there. He had been left behind in the village, given orders to prepare for the warriors’ triumphant return. Yet another disgrace for a man whose greatest crime had been to save all of their lives.

Which meant that, this time, he was not there to save them.

Instead, it had been
Dar’katal
Ulkar leading the charge.
Dar’katal
Ulkar, who saw a defenseless village, and, consumed by his anger, convinced of the righteousness of his purpose, never imagined that it could be anything else. The
Dar’katal
raised spear and sword, and as one they swept from the forest, crossed the plain in a heartbeat, and swarmed over the low mud-brick walls. Austin was first among them, leaping into the village with pulseblade sweeping through the air like the claw of a demon.

But his blade did not claim a single victim.

For the Traika were waiting for them.

In the time that it took for the Belayas and Austin to recognize the trap, a hail of arrows was already lancing towards them, cleaving through flesh and bone and skewering the would-be marauders where they stood. On instinct, Austin ducked and raised his blade defensively, but a pulseblade was not an effective defense against arrows; only the reinforced fiber armor suit beneath his clothes protected him from suffering the same fate as so many of the Belayas. Other Traika warriors slung spears and threw rocks, to devastating effect.

In moments, the Belayas numbers were reduced by half, while they had not inflicted a single casualty.

And the worst was yet to come…

While the Belayas were still reeling, struggling to regroup and muster a counterattack, the Traika lines parted, and a new class of warrior stepped forward. Men and women clad in long robes of animal—and Human—skin, their faces and bodies tattooed and pierced like demons of the earth. They chanted strange words, their voices melding into a terrifying song of death, and vines erupted from the ground to snare the Belayas. Austin slashed free of his bonds, but the Traika shamans didn’t appear to notice or care, and Austin had not the nerve to attack alone. This terrible magic unmanned him in a way that no mere show of force ever could. The shamans continued their chanting, and the vines began to squeeze, constricting about their helpless victims like snakes. Belayas warriors gasped for air, dropping their weapons as their fingers scrabbled helplessly at their living bonds. And still the chanting continued.