War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) (34 page)

“Why didn’t you take the throne?” Zerai asked. “Iyasu never really said. And don’t tell me it was because your back hurt.”

“You must be joking, or blind,” Faris said. “You didn’t notice the violence that tends to hover around the palace in Tagal? Particularly around people sitting on the throne? If you’re not killing someone, you’re being killed. No thank you. I like living a little too much for that.”

“Really?” Zerai stopped. “Everyone in your city is a blood-thirsty killer?”

“More than enough of them.”

“Really? Because I’ve been listening to Iyasu sob for days now about all the good people in your palace that he saw die at Darius’s hands. Were all of these good people going to kill you?”

Faris wiped his face. “I don’t know. Maybe not all of them.”

“Uh huh. Maybe none of them.”

“You don’t know that.”

Zerai shook his head with a sad grimace and carried on. The scenery ahead changed very little. The stream and the canyon ran fairly straight through the southern desert, and he had an uninterrupted view of stone walls with shining water below and thin wispy clouds above.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Faris said.

“Try me.”

“It’s not the same as out here. In the city, people have things. Homes, shops, reputations, animals, servants, and all manners of treasure. It’s a great deal to lose.”

“Whereas I have only my worthless life, and the lives of the people I love.”

“Don’t be glib,” Faris snapped. “I’m trying to explain something. When people have things, they want to keep those things, sometimes at any cost. They live in fear, so they want more power to keep themselves and their things safe, but with more power comes more things, then more fear, and the hunger for even more power. Do you see? It’s a wheel of greed and fear going round and round, making the powerful more powerful, and more fearful.”

“And?”

“And I don’t want to be one of those people!”

The prince’s roar echoed down the canyon walls.

Zerai stopped again and looked back at the huge man with a renewed sense of earnest curiosity. “Really? You’re afraid you would end up like those people?”

“I know I would. Look at me! I’ve nearly eaten myself to death, and when I was younger I nearly killed myself with wine and consorts every night. I know what I am.”

“Right, but, you just said it. You know. So can’t you do anything about it?”

“Of course not. I watched my kind and loving father become a cold, calculating tyrant by the time he died. His last act was to invade Ovati. Ovati! Our sister land to the north. I saw my father for what he was, for what he became. A monster, with a heart of stone and eyes that saw only gold, and a mind that could only count troops and taxes.” Faris shook his head. “Not me. Not me! There is more to life. Better things, simpler things. Food, wine, music, women, paintings and sculptures, sailing on the Leyen, riding a fine horse, feeling the spring breeze on your skin and the rising sun on your face after a long night of drinking and singing and leching. Life should be about joy. It’s too short as is. That’s all I want. I want to be happy. I want everyone to be happy. And no one should die, not for me, not for anything. No one!”

“Thousands have died for you already,” the falconer said softly.

“I KNOW!” Faris was shaking and swaying on his feet. He sat down hard on a small boulder and stared blankly into the gurgling waters of the stream as he covered his mouth with his hand. “I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

The prince shook his head.

Zerai glanced at Jengo. “Is that a word? Leching?”

“I think the word we should be worrying about is
rompo
.” The warrior pointed down the path.

Zerai turned and saw a handful of children running toward them along the edge of the stream, and just behind them, he saw a dark furry ripple in the shadows as something, no, many somethings, chased them. “Shit.”

He drew his sword with one hand and let loose a piercing whistle using the fingers of his other one. Nezana screamed in reply, somewhere in the distance.

Sounds like he’s going to run late.

Jengo already had his bow in hand with an arrow on the string, but he couldn’t fire, not with a dozen gangly children running wildly in their direction.

Zerai made a quick count of nine kids and seven rompos, and decided the children were large enough and the animals small enough to risk what he wanted to do. With his sword in hand, he leapt forward to come between the kids and their pursuers, only to stumble on a large stone at the last moment. As he lurched to the side, he dropped his khopesh on the pebbled riverbank with a clatter, and before he could reach for it he found three small boys jumping into his arms and clutching at his neck as they lifted their feet as high as possible off the ground.

The falconer grabbed as many of the boys as he could as he staggered backward. The first rompo dashed up to him, nipping at his ankle, and he kicked the huge black hare away.

Damn, these things are heavy.

He turned and nodded at Jengo, who fired an arrow into the furry mass of the pack, only to have the rompos leap to either side at the last moment so that the arrow plunged into the hard ground without touching any of them.

“Oh shit, Faris!” Zerai looked wide-eyed at the prince. “My sword! Get my sword!”

The prince hesitated only a heartbeat before scooping up the blade and thundering up the bank with a brutal war cry. As Zerai pushed the boys up onto a narrow rock ledge and kicked away two more of the beasts, Faris waded into the pack and slashed off the heads of two rompos in quick succession. He stepped on the neck of a third and kicked a fourth, and the survivors promptly turned tail and dashed away, back down the riverbank.

Faris took a few angry steps after them and then stood gasping, watching them run.

Zerai began helping the boys back down to the ground and cast a satisfied grin at Jengo, who merely shrugged in return.

Oh come on, that went really well. Give me some credit.

As the boys ran off toward the lake, Zerai cleared his throat and said, “Thanks, you really saved me there. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” Faris said wearily. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No, not a one.” Zerai smiled. “Nice work.”

Faris flashed him a brief, polite smile and returned the sword. “It was the least I could do.”

Zerai slipped his sword away and plucked Jengo’s arrow from the ground. As he walked it back to its owner he said, “Well, I suppose we should head back. I didn’t realize how dangerous the rompos really were. Best not to take any chances.”

Faris frowned and looked downstream. “If the rompos are encroaching on the places where the children play, someone could be hurt. Maybe we should go a bit farther and try to find the ones that got away.”

Zerai winked at Jengo, who shrugged again but offered a more encouraging smile.

We’ve got him.

“Sure, if you feel up to it.” Zerai nodded. “Lead on.”

Faris paused to give him a curious look, but the prince turned without a word and led them down the southward trail.

Zerai fell back and whispered to Jengo, “Nice shot. Have you hunted rompos before?”

“No, why?”

Zerai frowned at him. “Then how did you know they would dodge the arrow?”

“I didn’t.”

Another half hour of walking brought them to a wide depression in the earth where the stream formed a shallow pool before continuing south. Faris paused to survey the area. “Well, I don’t see any sign of them. But when we get back, we should tell the guards to be on the lookout.”

“Sure.” Zerai scanned the canyon walls and saw far too many cracks and crevices for his taste. Nezana’s white wings flitted across the open canyon roof.

Just as they turned to go back, the sounds of stones clattering down the rock walls echoed along the stream bed. Zerai looked up sharply, but saw nothing. “Let’s move a little faster.”

“Afraid?” Faris smiled. “I thought you weren’t afraid of anything, master falconer.”

“I don’t love this canyon. At least, I don’t love being at the bottom of it. No visibility, no way up.” He kept his eyes on the high ledges as he walked.

“Worried about an ambush?”

“Yes. Jengo, what about you? Ambush?”

“It smells that way, doesn’t it?”

Faris stopped smiling and they hurried on in silence. Zerai watched the higher ground, and he was staring at a particularly large cave above them when the hair on his neck rose, making him shiver. He spun around just in time to see the huge horned rompo bound off a low ledge and land on Faris. The prince screamed as he spun violently with the weight of the massive animal, and the two of them crashed down at the edge of the stream.

Jengo loosed two arrows before Zerai could even draw his sword, and as he charged out into the cold water the leopard-sized predator was yowling and hissing at the arrows lodged in its side, though it kept its claws buried deep into the prince’s back and arm. Faris gasped and thrashed in the shallow water as the dark blood ran swiftly over his wet skin.

A sharp chop with his khopesh broke the rompo’s neck, and then Zerai pried the claws out of Faris’s flesh. As soon as he was free, the prince lurched up out of the water and waded to the dry bank, where he sat and wiped his face with a shaking hand. Zerai grabbed one of the rompo’s horns and lifted it partly out of the water to get a better look. “This must be an adult.”

“Adult?” Faris shivered. “You mean those things before were just babies?”

“Yeah, looks that way.” Zerai dropped the animal and trudged up out of the water. “You all right?”

“Yes, I think so. They’re only scratches.”

They walked slowly back to the lake and as the city of tents came into view, Faris paused and said, “If that thing had found the children… Well, I’m glad it’s dead.”

“Yeah.” Zerai nodded. “Good thing you wanted to keep going south. If we’d turned back when I wanted to, that thing would still be out there.”

“I suppose so.” Faris started walking again. “But next time, let’s have the giant horned monster jump on your back, all right?”

Zerai and Jengo followed him with a shared grin. “Fair enough.”

As they drew closer to the city, the prince said, “I’ve been thinking. What if we don’t have to fight Darius’s army? What if we only have to fight
him
?”

Behind his back, Zerai and Jengo shook hands and winked. The falconer said, “That would make things a lot easier. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, one winter when I was in Burzhia, I met a man who…”

A sharp scream rose above the soft murmur of life in Jerinoba, and the three men bolted forward. Exchanging only a couple of glances, Zerai signaled that he would go to their tents to check on the others while Jengo ran toward the source of the cries. It took several long minutes of hard running, but soon the falconer staggered into his tent, only to find it empty. The prince’s tent was empty as well, and in the djinn tent he found Talia still asleep with a lone maid dozing at her side.

“Talia? Talia?” He shook her awake as gently as he could. “Talia, did something happen here? Where is everyone?”

The woman woke slowly and incoherently. “Zerai?”

“Have you seen Veneka or Iyasu? Where is everyone? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” She wiped her eyes and sat up a bit straighter, and looked around the empty tent. “Where’s my bag? I thought I put it right here.” She patted the ground beside her.

“I don’t know, I have to find Veneka.” Zerai dashed out and headed for the market area where he though Veneka might be. There had been no more screams, no more sights or sounds of trouble, but that was almost as worrying as the screams themselves.

He dodged and wove his way through the narrow, crowded streets of Jerinoba, twice ducking through a stranger’s tent to avoid a knot of merchants in the path, and when he finally reached the eastern market square he was panting and massaging a sharp pain in his side. But there was Veneka, standing near the entrance of a large blue tent with Iyasu, Jengo, and a number of other people he didn’t recognize. And one that he did.

Samira? I wonder if she found Petra, or just gave up looking.

He jogged to the group and Veneka took his hand, whispering, “Samira found Darius’s army in the Pillars. They will be here by nightfall.”

“What was that scream?”

“An older woman overhead the news, and panicked. She is lying down now.” The healer nodded at the blue tent.

Zerai glanced worriedly around at the crowd in the market, and saw the nervous looks being cast in their direction. “Should we step inside, out of the road?”

“No, we have no secrets here,” said a Vaari man with a thick gray beard spread across his broad chest.

Zerai didn’t ask for an introduction and simply assumed the man was some sort of leader among the caravans. “All right then, what’s the plan? Can we evacuate the city? Is there a way to safety down the canyon?”

“The Well is the only safety for a hundred miles,” the Vaari elder said. “There is nowhere we can go, except deeper into the desert, but only strong men and women can survive there. Not the young, and not the old.”

“Darius isn’t coming for you,” Jengo said. “He’s coming for Faris. But if he finds him here, he’ll destroy Jerinoba for sheltering the prince.”

“Then we need to lead him away.” Veneka looked at Iyasu. “We must leave now and let Darius catch our trail, and then lead him into the desert. Perhaps there we can lose him, or at least wear him down until we find another way to escape.”

The young seer sighed and looked around the market square. “What if he doesn’t follow us? Or what if he divides his army, half to follow us and half to come here?”

“Well, I’m sure Samira can think of a way to get his undivided attention,” Zerai said. “But right now, we need to gather the food and water we’ll need in the desert, and get moving.”

“No.” Iyasu took Azrael’s hand in his.

Zerai exchanged an uneasy glance with Veneka.

That’s a little more friendly than I’d like.

“No, we can’t keep playing this game by his rules,” Iyasu said. “Darius is a master at this. He’s a master at power and control, and fear and violence. The longer he’s free, the more people will suffer. We need to confront him.”