Shadows of Prophecy. Rachel Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ Anari.

      “Massacre,” Ratha muttered, still hacking his way forward with his companions. “They will all die.”

      “We must echelon right,” Archer said. “We will move toward Jenah. He must know that Giri has kept his oath.”

      “Aye,” Ratha said. He glanced over to Giri. “Echelon right, on Lord Archer’s command.”

      Giri nodded and, at a single word from Archer, the three men pivoted an eighth-turn in perfect unison. Step by step, slain foe by slain foe, they angled across the melee toward the Anari leader. Ratha stepped into the belly of a still-thrashing Bozandari soldier, noticing the dying man only to the extent necessary to keep his own balance and stay with his companions.

      Soon they could see Jenah’s back, almost within reach, as the tall, broad man tried in vain to protect two of his wounded brothers from another wave of Bozandari soldiers. The Bozandari fought with patient intensity, shoulder to shoulder, shields nearly overlapped, save only for enough space to deliver a scything thrust with each step. Anari courage and honor stood no chance against such training and discipline. It was only a matter of time.

      Ratha and his companions reached Jenah at the same instant as the Bozandari wave.

      “Jenah!” Archer cried. “Fall in behind us!”

      Jenah shook his head. “I must die with my Tel.”

      “Then you are a fool!” Ratha said, breathing heavily as his sword whirled against the Bozandari ranks. “What profit is your death except to our enslavers? You are betrayed, and to find the betrayer is now your honor.”

      “My honor is my Tel!” Jenah cried, thrusting at an enemy at the very moment that his foot slid across a blood-slicked rock.

      Jenah slipped to his knees, his sword lowered for just long enough to allow a Bozandari blade to slash across his back. The blade would have cleaved his spine, had he not risen up to thrust his own sword through the attacker’s throat. But Ratha knew the wound was crippling.

      “Blood have you shed for your brothers,” Ratha said. “Your honor is fulfilled. Now fulfill its greater burden and fall in behind us. Revenge for Gewindi-Tel you will have, but not on this treacherous night.”

      Fury warred with sorrow in Jenah’s eyes, but after a moment he nodded and circled behind them. Archer gave the command to withdraw, and the three began to step backward over the bodies of Bozandari and Anari, their feet and legs sticky with blood, arms and swords still swirling, keeping their opponents at bay.

      Finally they reached the confines of the defile, where the greater Bozandari numbers could not be brought to bear. Recognizing this, and satisfied with the carnage they had wrought, the Bozandari withdrew into the darkness, leaving Ratha and his companions drawing huge gulps of dry air as they finally lowered their swords.

      Ratha heard a cry behind him and turned as Jenah slumped to the ground on hands and knees, his head hanging limply, blood dripping from his chin.

      “Come,” Archer said. “Let us take him to Lady Tess. Perhaps she can give him aid.”

      Ratha nodded, bile rising in his throat as he looked out at the carnage in the dying light of the setting moon. “But she cannot aid them all, Lord Archer. By the gods, she cannot aid them all.”

      2

      Surrounded by armed men, the small group at the fire could do and say little. Tess felt Sara’s hand steal within hers, grasping warmly. She looked at the young woman and saw not fear, but determination to weather this somehow. Tom, too, looked determined, but he was staring into the fire as if he saw something there other than the leaping flames.

      “Tom?” she called quietly.

      For long moments he neither moved nor answered. Finally he said, “Patience. Evil will betray itself.”

      The counsel to patience was their only option. It wasn’t as if the three of them were in any position to fight five armed warriors. But Tess felt there was more in Tom’s statement. He did that every so often, making a remark that sounded more like formal prayer than mere speech. At such moments, Tess expected to look over into the face of a wizened old man and not one who had barely reached adulthood.

      “It is a gift,” Sara whispered, as if reading Tess’s thoughts. “He is a prophet. A seer.”

      Tess was startled. True, she remembered little enough of this world. But she couldn’t forebear asking, “Do such exist?”

      “Aye,” Sara answered. “Few they are, rarer than glazengold. One of the greatest is in Bozandar. Tales told at my father’s inn say that when foreknowledge overtakes him, he cannot even see the present, speaking only of the future. Oft his words cannot be understood except in hindsight.”

      “Hmm,” Tess said, feeling an inexplicable skepticism. “Very useful. So easy to predict the past.”

      Sara’s eyebrow arched, and then she shrugged. “’Tis like our powers, Tess. They terrify me. I know not what I do, or how I do it. Do you?”

      Tess shook her head. “It feels like riding an untamed horse. It goes where it wills, and I but follow.”

      Sara nodded. “But for all that, we cannot deny that it is real. At times, I think it is our curse.”

      They both fell silent as they remembered the mage Lantav Glassidor, burning alive as each drop of Sara’s blood touched him as Tess ordered him cleansed. As evil as the hive-master was, neither of them was comfortable with the way in which he had died…even if he had kidnapped and tortured Sara’s mother these past six years.

      Tess was troubled, too, by the scar on her palm. Somehow she had stopped Tom’s sword in midair as he went to kill Lantav, but she had not touched the instrument. Yet afterward this reddened scar had appeared on her palm, as if she had reached out and grasped the blade. It was beginning to fade, but it raised questions about what she had done and how. And why her action had affected her physically.

      Tess turned her hand over and showed it to Sara. “I did not touch Tom’s blade.”

      Sara nodded and turned over her hand. It bore an identical scar. From her palm had dripped the blood that had burned Lantav. “Maybe we Ilduin share each other’s ills.”

      Tess stared at Sara’s scar, and a chill crept down her spine. What was going on here? How tightly were the Ilduin bound? And in what ways? She closed her fist. “I do not know what to think.”

      “Nor I. Perhaps we share the scar because we shared the experience.”

      “Perhaps.” After all, Tess thought, it had been she who had told Sara to cleanse Glassidor.

      And little enough they had accomplished in the end, for as they had traveled south to the Anari lands, they had heard rumors of other hive-masters like Lantav, mages who melded the minds of many into one mind.

      And worse, they had glimpsed the dark power behind Lantav. Something not of this world, Tess thought. Something greater than any power in this world. Something she doubted she and Sara were strong enough to face.

      Tom seemed to draw his attention back from the fire. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. СКАЧАТЬ