The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet (27 page)

He knew what he was already…the greatest of fools and a
condemned
man.

Someone was calling his name. He knew the voice, but could not answer it.

“Uldyssian!”

He tried to wave a hand, give some sort of call, but failed. His mind sluggishly attempted to recall what had happened. Slowly, Uldyssian recalled Lylia and the revelation of her nature. That horrifying memory proved enough to enable him to let out a primitive shout, a garbled sound that proved sufficient, for the searcher’s own calls became more pronounced.

“Uldyssian! I know you’re here somewhere! Where—”

It was Achilios’s voice, Uldyssian finally realized. Good, faithful Achilios. He tried to say the hunter’s name, but it only came out as a rasping sound.

“Here! Here he is!” said what sounded like Serenthia. As grateful as he was to know that she also searched for him, Uldyssian suddenly grew concerned. Lylia would take special pleasure in tormenting Cyrus’s daughter.

Soft hands took hold of his face. Uldyssian instinctively jerked away, thinking that Lylia had returned. However, that fear was quickly squashed as Serenthia said, “Praise be! You’re alive! Achilios! Mendeln! Here he is!”

The sounds of figures thrashing through the brush alerted him to the others’ nearby presence. He heard an oath which had to have come from the archer.

“Is he wounded?” asked Mendeln, sounding more curious than concerned.

“He has bruises,” Serenthia returned. “But I see no cuts, no slashes! I don’t feel any broken bones.”

Another figure leaned over the fallen farmer. “He looks as pale as death,” Achilios rumbled. “Or worse.”

More and more details came back to him. He remembered fearing for his friends and his brother. He also recalled starting to walk back, but then, as if Lylia had taken even his will to live from him, Uldyssian had, without warning, just blacked out. Had the others not come in search of him, he wondered whether he would have ever awakened again. He supposed he eventually would have. After all, Lylia had not seemed to want him dead, merely…broken.

“How—” He swallowed hard, then tried again. “How did you know—”

It was as if he had asked them to join together to commit some terrible crime. All three grew oddly perturbed. Their silence added to his unease.

Mendeln finally spoke. “We knew that your life was in danger.”

Uldyssian remembered his brother running through the house earlier, shouting his name. “You did?”

“We
all
did.”

The hunter and Serenthia nodded. “I thought it was a nightmare,” she added. “But it was so terrible, I had to go check. That was when I noticed Achilios also up.”

“And barely had she and I met, when Mendeln came, insisting that he needed to see you a second time.”

The younger son of Diomedes frowned. “The notion would not go away, Uldyssian. I knew that you might be angry with me, but I was determined to try to warn you again…only to have all three of us discover you…and Lylia…gone.”

“Lylia!” gasped the raven-tressed woman. “We’ve forgotten about her! Uldyssian! Isn’t she with you?”

“She was.” His answer came out as a croak…not because of his condition, but rather the repulsive memories.

And yet, a part of him
still
yearned for her.

His companions anxiously looked around. He quickly shook his head.

“No…don’t look…for her.” Uldyssian forced himself to a sitting position. “With our luck…you might find her.”

He sensed their confusion. With help from both Serenthia and Achilios, Uldyssian next stood. As he did, his gaze met that of his sibling. Curiously, the nightmarish vision of his brother struck Uldyssian once more. He stared with such intensity that Mendeln finally looked away, as if guilty of something.

“Uldyssian,” murmured Achilios. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t we want to find Lylia? Why wouldn’t
you
want to find her?”

Had they not already been confronted with the reality of demons and spells, he could never have told them. As it was, Uldyssian’s shame was so great that it took him a long pause before he could finally begin.

And by the time he was through, they looked as horrified as he felt.

“You must’ve imagined it!” the hunter insisted. “It can’t be true!”

“A demon?” Serenthia blurted, with a shake of her head. “A demon?”

Only Mendeln, after his initial shock, nodded in understanding.

“It explains so much,” he finally uttered. “If one looks back at all that has passed.”

Uldyssian was not so certain that he shared his brother’s opinion. He only knew that he certainly had been blind, deaf, and dumb. He had let Lylia command him around as if he were a dog. People had died because of her madness, because of her intent to create a world of magical beings.

It was to their credit that they took his story to heart. Uldyssian had left nothing out—not even the part where Lylia had claimed the world was called Sanctuary and had been created by rogue demons and angels. It was important to him that someone else understood that the demoness had some mad plan that had stirred up the Temple and the Cathedral, both of which somehow had ties to her.

That brought him back to her final declaration. She had left him on his own to teach him the penalty for defying her. That meant that they were
all
in immediate danger. “We have to leave Partha!” he blurted. “We have to flee for our lives! The jungles in the lowlands are our best bet—”

“Hold, Uldyssian!” Achilios demanded. “What do you mean? We can’t flee! To flee means to become the hunted and there is no defense in that!”

“Achilios, all that I thought that I could do turns out to be a lie! It was all
her!
Everything!”

The archer shook his head. “I don’t know if I believe that. It doesn’t ring true!”

“And it isn’t,” insisted Serenthia. “Uldyssian, I’ve watched you. I’ve felt what you did. That could not have all been Lylia! What I sensed when you touched me was a part of
you!
I know that as well as I know…I know myself.” Her face reddened as she said the last.

While he appreciated all that she said, Uldyssian refused to accept that his efforts had been anything but false spectacles directed in secret by Lylia. “You didn’t see how easily she manipulated me, how easily she showed me that she could make me do whatever she wanted.”

“Uldyssian—”

“No, Serry! Had she wanted to, Lylia could have just as easily slain me herself, there and then. You saw how I was when you arrived…and it takes all I can muster just to keep standing.”

Achilios grunted. “There, he has a point. Let’s get him to one of the horses.”

As his friends assisted him, Uldyssian noted how he was practically a baby, so weak had his struggle with the temptress left him. Yes, Lylia had not been jesting when she had said that he was nothing without her. It would merely take the others a little longer to understand that.

Unfortunately, they barely had any time left as it was. Sooner or later, someone would come for Uldyssian.

“Your points would have much more merit,” Mendeln commented as he held the reins of the animal while Achilios hefted Uldyssian into the saddle. “If they could but explain how it is that Serenthia and Achilios knew that you were in danger.”

The trader’s daughter quickly seized hold of that point. “Yes! That certainly doesn’t sound like a ploy to work in her foul favor!”

“You’ve all got to see the truth!” he growled, tearing the reins from his brother’s fingers. “It was all a trick! This was some game between demons and others in which I played the biggest fool of all!”

Bitterness overtaking him, he kicked the horse into motion and took off in the direction he had originally been heading. Achilios gave a shout, but Uldyssian paid him no heed. He had intended to flee rather than risk his friends and loved ones any longer and that was more important than ever.

But behind him, he quickly heard the sound of hoofbeats. Swearing, Uldyssian urged his horse to a full gallop. The path was treacherous and made more so because it was beginning to slope downward, but he did not care. Had the animal tripped and tossed him to his death, it would likely have been the best of ends. Not only would he no longer have to fear being twisted inside and out by manipulators, but Mendeln and the others would surely be safe. They had never been suspected of being threats or potential weapons by the Temple or the Cathedral. They would have nothing to fear.

“Damn you, Uldyssian!” Achilios shouted. “Hold up!”

The nearness of the hunter’s voice startled him. He glanced back to see Achilios barely a length behind. Much farther in the rear were the murky forms of Mendeln and Serenthia, who had to share one mount.

“Return to Partha!” Uldyssian shouted back to the archer. “Take them with you! I want no more deaths, save maybe my own!”

“Talk sense, Uldyssian! You know that none of us will leave you now, not after knowing what Lylia was and what she did!”

The other two were no longer in sight. Looking ahead again, Uldyssian saw a fork coming up. The path to the left almost immediately narrowed dangerously. Achilios would not be able to come alongside him.

Veering, Uldyssian entered. His horse nearly stumbled as the terrain grew more wild and uneven. Very few had obviously taken this route in years, but he did not care. All he wanted was for it to slow or stop those behind him.

Achilios’s voice rose as the hunter swore at something. Uldyssian did not look back, concentrating on his own course. The clatter of hooves behind him lessened. His friend was clearly falling behind.

Then, out of the night, a series of low, thick branches cut across the trail. Uldyssian barely had time to avoid striking the first one dead-on. As it was, his right arm received a terrible blow that reverberated through his entire body. It was only by sheer will that the collision did not stun him enough to make him unprepared for the next and thicker branch.

A third and fourth one came in rapid succession. Uldyssian ducked left, then right, then right again. The last of the branches scraped the top of his head. He felt a trickle of moisture, undoubtedly blood.

But despite his injuries, Uldyssian’s hopes rose. Achilios would see the branches and be forced to slow. It was a chance for the son of Diomedes to either gain on his pursuer or lose him altogether, for there were places coming into the dim moonlight that promised Uldyssian such cover that even the skilled hunter would be unable to track him.

Then, a crashing sound nearly caused him to steer his horse directly into a tree. Without thinking, Uldyssian slowed the animal. The noise had come from back up the path, about where the treacherous branches would be.

The branches…and if he had not slowed,
Achilios
.

Uldyssian reined the horse to a halt and listened.

Silence…no…the snorting of a horse. Not a horse in motion, though.

He started to urge his mount forward, then hesitated again. Still no sound other than the animal.

With an oath, Uldyssian turned back. He had wanted to lose Achilios, nothing more. If something worse had happened…

The dark path proved just as haphazard to climb as it had to descend. Bits of earth and rock broke away under the hooves. At one juncture, the horse’s shifting nearly caused Uldyssian to slip.

Ahead of him, a massive form loomed. Achilios’s horse, but without the hunter. Where—

A groan arose from somewhere to the left, where the path dropped precariously. Uldyssian’s fears increased. He pulled up and, barely waiting for his mount to halt, leapt to the ground. Every muscle burned; in his anger, he had paid little mind to his own state and now his body was angrily reminding him that he could barely walk.

Yet, despite that, Uldyssian continued. He took both his mount’s reins and those of the other horse and tied them to one of the very branches in question. Uldyssian then stumbled in the direction of the moan.

The irony of the situation did not escape him. Achilios had freely come to help Uldyssian and
this
was how his friend had been repaid. Guilt vied with shame now. He remembered even
hoping
that one of the branches would cause Achilios trouble, although not to
this
extent. Nevertheless, Uldyssian
had
been aware of the danger and yet he had not cared about anything but his own choices.

The descent was a slippery one, for the ground gave way with every step. There was still not a sound of the third horse and Uldyssian wondered just how far behind his brother and Serenthia were. He could not simply trust that if he dragged Achilios up to the path that they would come across him. Uldyssian had ceased believing in miracles, great or small.

Below him, he saw only darkness. It had been his hope that the hunter’s blond hair would stand out, but that was not the case. Uldyssian grew more concerned. Was he even in the same area where his friend had ended up?

Then, some urge sent him toward the left, a place he would not have considered a possible location. Yet, when Uldyssian thought of turning back, he found himself unable to do so. Frowning, the farmer delved deeper.