Blood Warrior

CHAPTER FOUR

Tallis had witnessed the beheadings of Dragon Kings. He’d dispatched more than a few. Visceral memory would not let his hands forget how the metal hilt would crush the bones of his palm as he struck a Dragon-forged sword through a neck. Neither could he forget the warm spray of the blood. When he’d committed his first murder at the behest of the Sun, that of a long-dead Pendray priest, he’d left behind the ring that bore his family’s crest, claiming the kill and marking himself as the target of his clan’s hatred. Better that way.

Yet he’d thought about Lady Macbeth. Although he’d wiped clean his armor and his weapons, he would never be able to wash away the stains. The exact temperature of a dying man’s blood became an indelible detail.

Subsequent kills had meant less to him. The repetition of it. The rhythm of following orders and detaching his morality. The deaths he’d brought about had created peace in places where Dragon Kings squabbled, where rifts threatened to break fragile alliances. His dirty work had been successful—until it had ruined Nynn’s life.

He was unnaturally good at his work.

Pashkah of the Northern Indranan was better.

Had the man felt any emotion about beheading two fellow clansmen, it would be satisfaction. He stood like a triumphant god who, dissatisfied with sacrifices made in his honor, had taken the task upon himself. Two lifeless bodies slumped at his feet. Two heads had rolled away—distended tongues, bulging eyes, matted hair. The pair of Guardsmen stepped back from what remained of the prostrate men they’d forever immobilized. Their expressions were even more vacant. They radiated none of Pashkah’s silent triumph.

If Tallis could ever read minds, this was the moment. He sensed more than satisfaction radiating from the murderer. He sensed glee.

The camp was a riot.

The Black Guard descended from the altar and strode through the tents. They grabbed women. Young women. Dark robes and saris were subsumed by men in black brigandine armor. Little blackbirds chased by avaricious ravens. In the melee, only flashes of mirrored armor plates distinguished predator from prey.

The Indranan men fought back. Their punishment was that from which a Dragon King could not recover: crippling injuries. Their kind had remarkable healing powers, but they couldn’t regenerate limbs. Extreme wounds left scars. Suffering those ramifications could last the length of their two-century life span.

“We have to go,” Tallis said plainly. His mission hadn’t changed, no matter the hysteria that tainted the air as surely as his nostrils scented blood. “Wouldn’t they love to get their hands on you.”

“They wouldn’t keep me for long. They’d hand me over to Pashkah and my severed head would lie on that altar within minutes.” The Sun had revealed herself as just an Indranan woman, not a goddess, but she shot sparks from her eyes. “You brought this on us.”

She stood and scampered free of the tent so quickly that Tallis was thrown off-balance. He caught his momentum with a backward twist of his hand. Without wasted motion, he grabbed his pack and tucked one seax into the scabbard crossing his back.

He launched into the crowd, gripping the other blade. The unmistakable swirl of a golden sari was his only means of tracking Kavya through a circus of flailing, screaming, and maiming. She headed toward the outskirts of camp, not toward the round valley’s sole exit—a narrow ravine. Likely she’d chosen this place for symbolic reasons. Circles and unions and the security of being held within the majesty of timeless mountains. She’d also chosen the worst place for a group of defenseless parishioners to escape trained killers.

He glanced up. Along the craggy ridges, more Guardsmen stood in anticipation of an ambitious refugee.

Tallis chased the Sun. No lazy pursuit, as if he were the moon tracking across the sky in a never-ending dance. He chased her with the speed of a Dragon King about to lose his sanity.

An Indranan man caught Tallis by the forearm. “Help us, friend. Help us.”

“Use what your family gave you. Every pod has a Dragon-forged sword. I’ve lived among you long enough to know that.”

“So few of us remain!” His leathery skin shone with sweat. The tightness of his creased eyes couldn’t hide his distress.

“Then make sure you’re one of them. Unless you want to see the Juvine repeated, with your daughters stolen for breed stock.” Tallis shrugged free. “The Sun has made you complacent. Peace. Unity. This . . .” He nodded toward the chaos. Two members of the Black Guard held a young man’s arms while another gouged his eye with a dagger. Shrieking, clutching the empty socket, the victim was helpless while the guards dragged away a sobbing girl with long honey-brown hair. “This is the world we really live in.”

Tallis turned toward where he’d last seen Kavya.

When he couldn’t find her distinctive sari, he resisted the urgency of his gift. These people, this riot—followed by the sinking doubt that perhaps he’d been partly to blame. For whatever reason, Kavya couldn’t read his mind, but what if Pashkah could? Tallis’s focus on her whereabouts might have led the madman here. Those self-recriminations conspired to conceal Tallis’s rationality in the steam of a swirling, claustrophobic rage. He needed to find her. No one needed his spinning berserker rage in that quicksand of gore.

Whatever trick blocked his mind from her telepathy didn’t protect him from the rest of the Indranan. Their previous, almost polite tap-tap curiosity about a Pendray in their midst had become splatters of toxic confusion. Every mind writhed with the same thought: escape.

The shove and crush of bodies overwhelmed his path. He was tempted to use his seax for more than intimidation. However, the chances that some terrified Indranan carried an inherited Dragon-forged sword put him at a disadvantage. His aggression would appear little different than a Guardsman on the hunt for young female flesh, and he wanted to keep his head. Literally. The body count was currently two—at least.

Tallis of Pendray would not fall victim, too.

There.

Golden silk.

His heart jumped with a kick of adrenaline. The dam holding back his gift was weakening.

Kavya was not alone. A large Indranan woman stood at her side. She wore what appeared to be ceremonial brigandine armor, similar to that worn by the Black Guard. Called “the coat of a thousand nails,” its wool and leather padding was backed with rivets. Penetrating that dense overlapping iron with a blade was almost impossible. Pristine and unscathed, the armor was decorated with pale Northern turquoise. Only the woman’s posture suggested her clothing and the curved talwar saber she held were more than for show.

A burst of pain shot down Tallis’s backbone, from his temple to the base of his spine.

What the hell?

He dropped to one knee and looked up. The female stranger glared down. More pain sizzled his every nerve. Another man might’ve been crippled by that stinging, blinding blow, but Tallis had nearly lost the Sun. His prize. He wasn’t going to lose her again.

“You’re coming with me,” he said, working past the agony that centered at the base of his skull. He caught the Sun’s gaze. “No matter what you and that butcher of a brother have done.”

“You blame me for this?” Wide, almost innocent eyes narrowed with concentrated anger. At least the chaos had stripped the last of her ability to draw false impressions from the crowd.

“You’ve led your people to slaughter,” he said. “We won’t be victims, too.”

Lunging forward, seax at the ready, he attempted to grab her waist with his free arm.

The Sun shot backward. “Chandrani!”

The bigger woman met Tallis’s attack with a quick parry and flick of her saber. The curving blade meant his arrow-straight seax was deflected by a swooping arc. It was like trying to stab the center of a blender’s blades. Only his speed, which was gathering as his fury increased, dented the skilled woman’s defenses. She moved with surprising grace, considering she was nearly his height, made of muscle, and covered in riveted leather armor. A bodyguard. That would explain the pain she continued to shoot through his skull. Some Indranan were better suited to thought manipulation, others to combat. This woman Chandrani was obviously one of the latter.

Tallis spun behind her. He kicked the back of her knee with his heavy combat boots. She stumbled—the opening he needed. The power he harnessed was unpredictable, but he’d been wielding it since its manifestation in his early teens. He let a portion of the rage fuel his movements. Stronger. Faster. His mind slipped behind a haze of red. He managed to restrain his violence only after slamming the hilt of his seax against the woman’s temple. She staggered, clutching where blood oozed from between her fingers.

“What have you done?” The Sun rushed forward and held the woman’s head against her chest. “She was the only hope I had of getting out of here.”

“No, you have me.” Tallis hitched the strap of his pack. “I don’t believe you backed yourself into a valley without a way out. Show me how you planned to escape and I won’t continue to fight this woman.”

“Chandrani comes with us.”

He smiled grimly. “If she can walk.”

—

She hated him. Kavya had thought herself immune to hatred beyond her loathing for Pashkah. That loathing came from the knowledge that her life was not her own so long as he lived. She couldn’t behead him and risk taking two minds into her own. Anyone she hired to kill him could accept double the payment to lead Pashkah right back to her. And she wouldn’t risk Chandrani, her only reliable calm in a world of chaos. The woman had offered to kill him several times, as repayment for a bleak night in Mumbai ten years ago when Kavya had beheaded Chandrani’s murderous twin sister. Afterward they’d held each other and cried in both relief and grief.

That was an Indranan’s deepest burden, to genuinely love and hate one’s mortal foe. Kavya lived with the constant dread that the brother she’d adored as a child—together with Baile, the three of them inseparable—was eager to steal her from this world, when she still had so much to do.

But Tallis of Pendray . . .

The Dragon-damned Heretic. She hated him without reservation.

She helped Chandrani stand, although the woman outweighed her by a good forty pounds of muscle. “I’m sorry,” the woman said, her voice rife with pain. “I heard your shout, but your mind flickered in and out. I couldn’t focus to find you. Then . . . then there was chaos.”

“The fault was mine. I was dazed. Couldn’t concentrate after I called for you.”

Chandrani offered a watery smile. She only smiled for Kavya, which represented their unshakable bond. “I wouldn’t be able to concentrate in the company of that lonayíp bastard either.”

“I still need you,” Kavya whispered, her face flushed. “Please. For me. We need to escape.”

Chandrani steadied herself with gratifying efficiency. No one in Asia was a better, more sacrificing warrior. Her honor and dedication had kept Kavya alive far longer than she’d expected as a scared, homeless twelve-year-old girl.

Kavya glared once more at Tallis before turning toward the altar.

Tallis followed. She’d expected his presence, but he seemed unusually willing to follow. Not grab and demand. He was connected to her in ways that he resented. What was it about his past that had produced such a strange combination of bitterness and . . . protectiveness? Even affection? An untenable sense of his innate aura was the closest she could get to reading his mind.

Despite the physical bullying, she’d never gotten the impression that he aimed to do her harm. When he called her “goddess,” his tone was sarcastic and acidic, but she’d heard something near to reverence. Years of hearing it from her followers meant she recognized unconscious awe. He didn’t realize how much he gave away by insulting her with that particular word.

She struggled through the crowd, dodging frantic hands that beseeched her for help—or held her back—but she wore a tight smile. Here she’d thought herself incapable, or more arrogantly, above using her physical senses. Tallis was right that she’d become complacent.

What had she expected to happen? That Pashkah would simply let her go? The properties of a psychic Mask—many Masks, in her case—only extended so far. She could’ve hidden forever had she lived an unassuming life, especially had she emigrated. But because Dragon Kings could no longer bear children, she would’ve lived day to day without purpose. A useless hermit.

Anger swelled in her chest, fighting for a place where her aching breath huffed. Pashkah would not take this from her, and neither would Tallis of Pendray. Whatever she needed to do to escape, she would do. She was the only person able to reveal Pashkah’s treachery and reunite her people.

Raghupati was dead. Omanand was dead. She mourned the loss of two men willing to make a difference, standing beside her and perhaps helping to bear a few of her decades-old burdens.

Thankfully, the Black Guard had scattered into the crowd, leaving the altar a solitary heap of rock.

Tallis grabbed her arm. “Let me go first.”

“By all means.”

The deepening shadows of evening meant his features were harder to discern. The color was gone. She’d liked his hair, tipped with a silvery sheen, and she’d liked his deep blue eyes. Too bad. She was stuck with a deranged Pendray whose looks were a hindrance to her ability to concentrate.

A distracted Indranan courted death by a ready sibling. And so the cycle of death and madness continued.

Creeping through the archway, Tallis kept his back to the altar and circled to the rear. His stealth was impressive. He was in tune with himself and the vagaries of the physical world—typical of the Pendray, as was his stubborn lack of sense. That came standard with their kind.

“What am I looking for?” he whispered over his shoulder.

She caught Chandrani’s arm as the larger woman swayed, still clutching her head. “A span of rock with flecks of copper,” Kavya said. “It’s not sandstone or granite. It conceals a tunnel for escape.”

“I knew you weren’t that naive.”

“Perhaps I was.” She glanced back to where the Guardsmen were rounding up women. More and more men had been pushed to the eastern side of the valley, contained by guards holding Dragon-forged swords. That gold-touched gleam on otherwise ordinary steel was unmistakable. They wouldn’t be able to fight back, or even flee. Only the Dragon knew their fate. “I had been hoping for unity, not planning for worst-case scenarios.”

“The arrival of a twice-blessed sibling is certainly that.”

“Twice-cursed.”

“Do your clan words matter to me?”

Kavya had underestimated the extent of Pendray rage lurking beneath his cool surface. He radiated the tension of a gale-force blizzard wind. He was different in that he held back what other members of his clan basked in using at any opportunity. At least, that’s how the Pendray were described in rumor and disdainful talk.

“If he kills me, he’ll lose connection to reality. His mind will be all that matters. He’ll live there and refashion the world to match what he sees. That could mean anything.” She nodded toward where bodies lay motionless on the altar. Blood had started to congeal around her fallen allies. “I doubt it will be peaceful.”

“Turns out you won’t need me to discredit you. The Sun led her people to slaughter, with your brother as the heavy.”

“You know nothing,” Chandrani said with unflinching vehemence. Despite her bleeding temple, she pushed Kavya forward and took up the rear defense. She held her saber with practiced steadiness.

The bubble of relative safety behind the altar muffled sound. Rock protected Kavya from the audible nightmare her people were enduring, but nothing buffered the suffering they shouted in silent, psychic screams. Her stomach was a solid cramp of tissue that wouldn’t loosen. Nothing could undo this damage, even if she restored some sense of unity.

How confident she’d been that afternoon.

Too confident. Too arrogant. She’d created a place of spiritual safety that belied actual safety. Northerners and Southerners had put aside their differences. There in the valley, when had any needed to use telepathic attacks? Never. They’d been taken by surprise, and they were fighting back, but with two deadly sweeps of his sword, Pashkah had proven all of them to be woefully complacent.

“There,” she said. “That block.”

Tallis sheathed his seax and dropped his pack. He squatted before the boulder that concealed the exit and pushed.

“Help him or cripple him?” Chandrani asked. “I can do either. He didn’t hit me that hard.”

“Half your face is covered in blood. He knew just where to hit you, didn’t he? Can you read my thoughts?

Chandrani shook her head, appearing ashamed as if she were to blame.

Kavya touched her friend’s cheek—the only skin left exposed by the riveted armor. “Help him. We’ll deal with him later.”

“I won’t let him hurt you.” Chandrani’s expression remained impassive, but the conviction in her voice was unmistakable. She never lied. She never exaggerated. Her only failing was in thinking she could do everything herself.

They were very alike in that sense.

“Now isn’t the time to discuss my fate,” Tallis ground out, with his shoulder to the copper-flecked stone. It was half his size. “This was your escape? How did you expect to move this?”

Chandrani pushed Tallis aside. She touched a hidden place along the valley wall. The boulder opened like a door on a hinge. “Brains over brawn, Pendray.”

“Too bad for you, sister,” came that dreaded ghost-soft voice. Pashkah had intoned for the crowd, but delivered his sincerest threats in whispers.

He stood flanked by two members of the Black Guard. Each held a terror-stricken young woman, while Pashkah was armed with the same blood-drenched sword he’d used to commit public murder. “Brains would’ve been useful today, Kavya. Now it’s time to see what sort of deity you’ve really become. Come with me or these young women become my next victims.”