Shadows Return

CHAPTER 44 The Parting

SEREGIL DIDN’T MEAN to shut Alec out; he just didn’t know what to say.

As the night waned, the way grew more barren rather than less, with no signs of habitation, and everyone’s concentration was taken up with not breaking an ankle or falling into a hole. By dawn their food was gone, and the water skin was just half-full. Alec took his hunting sling and left an unwilling Sebrahn with the others.

Hunkered down in a dry gully, Seregil settled with his back to a rock-well away from Ilar, even though Alec wasn’t there to see-and regarded the restless rhekaro with some concern. “I thought we were beginning to get along, you and I?”

Sebrahn squatted where Alec had left him, eyeing them both with apparent wariness.

“He’s very attached to Alec, isn’t he?” Ilar remarked. “How are you going to manage, back in Skala?”

“I have no idea.”

“Perhaps he could be of some use to your queen?”

Not in the mood for conversation, particularly that one, he tried to ignore the man, but it seemed Ilar needed to talk.

“You and Alec…Are you still angry with each other?”

Seregil rested his head against the rock behind him. “I’m not mad at him. He’s young. It’s hard for him, thinking of me having others before him. Especially you.”

“I could talk to him.”

“Don’t.”

“Then you should.”

Seregil gave him a meaningful glare. “Keep on like that and I’ll drop a rock on your head while you sleep.”

After that, Ilar kept his thoughts to himself.

When Alec returned empty-handed, they set off again, looking for better cover. There weren’t even rocks large enough to shelter under, much less trees.

“No wonder the Plenimarans are always trying to take someone else’s land,” Alec muttered, shading his eyes as he scanned the distance.

“I hear it’s like this all the way-”

“Oh hell!” Alec was staring hard at something in the distance ahead of them.

There, not a mile away, a long plume of dust traced a trajectory in their direction, straight as a bowshot. Seregil had been expecting this for so long, it was almost a relief. “Could be nothing, just traders or something. All the same-run!”

“Run where?” Ilar cried.

Seregil knew there was no point in going back the way they’d come, so he struck out west. “Just keep going. Maybe we’ll find something.”

But they didn’t and now they could make out the shapes of horses, coming on at a gallop, and hear the distant baying of hounds.

Seregil cocked his head, listening. “I guess they do keep dogs, after all.”

“Bad luck…to kill…a dog,” Ilar panted.

“I’ll risk it. Sounds like they’ve got a scent.”

“It took them long enough,” Alec muttered, holding Sebrahn’s legs to keep the rhekaro from falling out of the sling as he ran.

They ran for all they were worth, but it was no use. Within minutes, Seregil looked back over his shoulder and saw a pack of riders following the hounds and heard the sound of a hunting horn.

“We might as well save our strength,” said Alec, stopping to watch their pursuers.

“What are you saying?” Ilar quavered. “If they catch us…”

Seregil cast a longing look south. In the distance, the dark blue ocean mocked him, hopelessly beyond reach. He could even make out the tiny white specks of sails on the water.

“Alec…” This was no time for long speeches and explanations. He grabbed Alec and kissed him; their cracked lips tasted of dust and salt. Sebrahn, still in his sling, touched Seregil’s cheek with his cold little fingers, almost as if he could feel the sorrow between them.

Alec buried a hand in Seregil’s hair and rested his forehead against his. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. No one is taking us.” Seregil drew his sword. “Give Ilar your knife. We stand and fight.”

Alec tried to hand Ilar his knife, but the man backed away.

“No!” The color had drained from Ilar’s face, and Seregil recognized the same look of terror and despair he’d seen in Rhania’s face, just before she drove a knife into her own heart. Before Seregil could stop him, Ilar turned and ran, away from the oncoming riders and away from them.

“Let him go,” said Alec, though Seregil had made no move to follow. “He won’t be any help.”

“I suppose not.”

Alec put Sebrahn down and stepped in front of him. “Stay there.” The rhekaro whimpered and clutched at the back of his coat.

“I think you were right, about the oracle and all,” Seregil said, shaking his head.

“Thanks for that, talí.”

“Better late than never, I guess.”

The dogs reached them first, six huge mastiffs. Their hackles were up and their heads low.

“Do the dog thing,” Alec muttered.

Seregil fixed as many of them with his gaze as he could and performed the spell. “Soora thalassi!”

Two of the dogs relaxed, tongues out and tails wagging.

Seregil quickly did it again, and a third time, then sent them running north.

That was certainly going to help, but as the riders closed in on them, Seregil counted at least twenty men, with Yhakobin in the lead. At least half of them were archers. “I sure miss that bow of yours right now.”

“Me, too. I could have pared down the numbers.” Alec paused. “It’s me he wants, and Sebrahn.”

“Don’t even think it. If we go down, we go down together.”

Alec grinned bravely, but his eyes were sad. “Kari always said you’d get me killed. At least we can find the Gate together.”

“We’re not dead yet.”

Yhakobin and his men reined in a few dozen yards off and fanned out to surround them.

“Master, Khenir is getting away,” one of them said to Yhakobin. Ilar was already far off, and dwindling from sight.

“I’ll attend to him later.” The alchemist rested his gloved hands on the pommel of his saddle and raised an eyebrow at Seregil. “You’ve taken what belongs to me.”

Seregil raised the tip of his sword, deadly calm now. “I could say the same.”

“Say what you like. You’ll be dog’s meat soon.” Turning his attention to Alec, he said, “You have stolen from me, too, Alec, and run away, but I am prepared to be somewhat merciful. Drop your sword and bring the rhekaro to me.”

“Kiss my ass, Ilban!”

Yhakobin smiled. “I believe those were the first words you spoke to me. I promise you, you’ll regret them.” He raised his hand. The two archers beside him raised their bows and took aim.

At Seregil.

Things went very clear and shining, the way they often did in a crisis. Seregil could see the sharp edges of the steel broadheads, and count the vanes on the shafts. He could hear the creak of the bowstrings and there was no time to run…

Something struck him from the side, hard, and he fell. He’d been hit by an arrow before; it didn’t feel like this. Before he could figure it out, however, Alec came down on top of him, knocking the wind out of him.

Seregil pushed at him, trying to get up, but he didn’t move. “Alec?”

He was far too limp, and too silent. Seregil pushed himself up on his elbows. Alec lay faceup, arms still thrown wide to protect Seregil, with two arrows protruding from his chest-one near his heart, the other just below his throat.

Mortal wounds.

A faint gurgling sound came from his lips as blood welled there and ran down his chin. His eyes were open and already fixed, reflecting the lowering grey sky.

He was dying.

Alec was dying, and not even Sebrahn could help him now.

With a ragged scream of pure rage, Seregil scrambled to his feet, gripped his sword in both bloody hands, and ran to meet his own death.

Kari was lifting the lid from a kettle when a terrible chill rolled over her. She dropped the lid with a clatter and sank down on the settle.

“What’s wrong?” Illia cried, kneeling beside her and wrapping her arms around her mother to keep her from falling. “Are you sick?”

“No,” Kari said faintly, pressing a hand to her brow. It was wet with cold sweat that hadn’t been there a moment before. “I don’t know. A goose must have stepped on my grave-” She’d meant it lightly, but suddenly she was clutching her daughter to her breast and sobbing. “Oh my heart! Something…Where are the children? Are they safe?”

“They’re in the yard, Mama. Please, don’t cry! They’re safe, I promise. There, you can see them through the doorway.”

Gherin and Luthas heard the commotion and ran to her, terrified.

“Mama, what is it?” Gherin wailed, burying his face in her skirts.

Kari gathered both little boys into her arms with Illia, but the grief was just as strong. Oh blessed Dalna, please! Not when he’s so far from home!

In the deepest recesses of the caverns beneath the Temple at Sarikali, the Dragon Oracle laughed.

Beyond the peaks called Ravensfell by the Tír, a dark-eyed half-breed woke in her hut with tears on her cheeks.

The Plenimaran coastline was a dark line on the horizon sight. Micum was too restless to sit still now, and divided his time between pacing the deck and standing watch at the forward rail. It seemed that no matter how the hours passed, the land remained as far away as ever. Their captain promised that he’d have them ashore somewhere near Riga by midnight, but the winds were changing and Micum could tell that he and the mate were worried.

And once we get there, where to start? Micum wondered, admitting to himself at last what he could never say to Thero.

Just then the wind went colder and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Turning slowly, he gripped the rail in one hand to keep from staggering. “Oh Illior, no!”

Chilled and discouraged, Thero had retired to their cabin to rest. Despite all his assurances to Micum, he knew it might be impossible to find them, even if they were able to get ashore. Every sighting had failed. It was as if Alec was veiled from sight. And Illior only knew what their reception at Riga would be, even with the Gedre traders to vouch for them.

Lying on the narrow bunk, he threw an arm across his eyes, hating this feeling of helplessness. He could only imagine Micum’s agony; the look of disappointment in his eyes, every time Thero failed with his magic, haunted him. To lose Seregil and Alec like this, never knowing what had become of them…

To fail them like this!

He sat up, blinking away tears. I can’t give up. I won’t!

Composing himself cross-legged on the bunk, he closed his eyes and brought his hands up in the figure of seeing as he threw his mind’s eye once more into flight toward Riga.

Give me some sign. Anything. Lightbearer, I beg you, guide my eye!

He held the spell until his head throbbed and his breath gave out, and then broke it, gasping, to find blood streaming from his nose in twin rivulets. That had never happened before. He must be more exhausted than he thought. In fact, he was shaking badly and felt chilled to the bone. And when had the sun gone down? The room was so dim, and so cold!

Thero…

Startled, Thero looked around the little cabin. There was nowhere for anyone to hide, yet the faint, tremulous whisper seemed to come from all around him.

Thero, help…

“Who are you?” he whispered.

Thero, can you hear…

He knew that voice. Thero pressed his palms together, opening his mind’s eye again, but this time within the confines of the cabin.

It was a strong spell for such a small space. Every detail of the tiny room appeared with razor-edged clarity behind his closed lids, and there in front of him stood Alec.

Thero had seen only a few ghosts in his life, and never one so clearly. No shredding, rippling shade, this. Alec seemed almost as solid as life, except for the fact that Thero could see the faint outline of the door through him, and the edge of the window. He was dressed in strange clothing, and his chest was soaked with blood. His lips were moving, but Thero couldn’t hear him now.

“Alec!” Thero’s voice broke but the spell held. “Please, let me hear you!”

Alec faded almost out of sight, but his voice returned. Help him! Save Seregil and the child.

“Child? Where are they? Can you show me?”

Show you! Alec reached out and clutched Thero’s spirit by the hand in a crushing grip and suddenly they were flying, the sea and sky a blur around them, then the land under them. Not Riga. No, someplace miles to the east and south.

I was looking in the wrong place all along!…hurry!

Thero could see the coastline from here and far below, a few tiny specks of riders hemming something in.

No, someone.

He could see Alec on the ground now, pitifully splayed in death, with arrows in his body. He saw Seregil running, sword in hand, at more men than he could hope to bring down alone. And someone else, a blur of white, so indistinct, yet the sight of it sent a shudder through Thero’s very soul.

What is that? Even from here I can feel it!

Alec’s shade looked at him with such sad eyes, then he was falling, falling-

“Thero, look at me!”

Thero opened his eyes to find himself sprawled on the cabin floor with blood running down the back of his throat from the nosebleed. Micum was crouched over him.

“Alec!” There was no sign of the shade now. The deathly chill was gone and sunlight was streaming in through the window.

“You saw him, too?” Micum was looking panicked now, something Thero had never seen before.

“I know where they are!” Thero told him, and burst into tears.

“You fool!” Yhakobin shouted, not at Seregil but at the slave takers. “Kill him! Kill him now, but don’t touch the rhekaro or I’ll have your skins!”

Seregil felt the arrows that struck his thigh and shoulder with no more concern than if they’d been gnat bites. His throat hurt, too, and perhaps he was screaming. Some part of his mind was aware of other shafts hissing around him, and the shouts of the men dismounting to stop him, but his vision had narrowed to one long dark tunnel and at the end of it all he could see was Yhakobin, sitting his horse with one hand raised as if to fend off the certain death bearing down on him.

Two swordsmen dismounted to block his headlong rush. Seregil sliced the head off the first one with a single swing and plunged his poniard into the chest of the other. Not caring if he was dead or not, Seregil trampled him underfoot and kept on running.

The alchemist tried to rein his mount aside, but Seregil sprang at him, dragging him from his horse. Throwing Yhakobin to the ground, Seregil hacked off one upraised hand, then plunged the point of his sword into the man’s belly and yanked it hard, spilling his guts on the ground in his fury. He could see the man’s mouth open, and guessed that he was screaming, but all he could hear now was a single clear, ringing note, too pure and piercing to come from a living throat.

He turned slowly, still caught in a nightmare. The rhekaro was standing over Alec’s body, his mouth stretched in a perfect O. The sound was coming from him, and mingling with it were the screams of the slave takers and the cries of the horses as they reared and bucked.

As Seregil watched, the remaining riders fell from their saddles, screaming and bleeding from their eyes and ears and noses. One by one they went still and silent, and only when the last one was dead did the rhekaro’s deadly song die away.

When it was done, Sebrahn collapsed across Alec’s chest, and that pale grey little tongue flickered out, lapping at the blood on Alec’s throat.

“Get away from him!” Seregil screamed. He staggered back to them, wrenching the arrows from his flesh as he went. “Can’t you just leave him alone? Go suck the blood from your maker, you monster!”

Sebrahn looked up at him and Seregil saw that there were tears streaming down the rhekaro’s cheeks. Seregil pushed him aside. Falling to his knees, he dragged Alec’s limp body into his arms and felt frantically at Alec’s throat and wrists.

But there was no pulse, or breath. Those beloved eyes had the fixed glaze Seregil had seen too often in the faces of the dead. “No! Oh Illior, no, please! Alec!”

He shook him, and chafed his blood-soaked chest, knowing that it was useless, but unable to give up yet.

Sebrahn pulled at Seregil’s shoulder and he shoved the rhekaro away. Choking back a sob, he pulled the arrows from Alec’s chest. When Seregil pressed his hand to the wounds, bright blood oozed up between his fingers, but it was no longer flowing.

Only then did he notice the hot blood soaking the leg of his own trousers, and feel the pulsing wound on his inner thigh. Ah then, they’ve finished me off after all. Small mercy.

Burying his face in Alec’s tangled, dirty hair, he broke down completely, not caring that they were in the open, or about the carnage Sebrahn had wrought. He could feel his own strength slipping away, and welcomed it. He’d have sat there with Alec like that until they were both food for the crows, if that damn creature hadn’t kept tugging at his shoulder. Seregil tried to push him off, but Sebrahn simply wouldn’t let him be.

“What?” Seregil demanded, wearily raising his head. Sebrahn was still crying, and holding something out in both bloodstained little hands, something he wanted Seregil to see.

It was another of those flowers, but this one was pure white with a golden center, and as clean as if it had just been plucked from a pure lake.

“I don’t want your healing,” Seregil growled, slapping it away.

Sebrahn shoved him back with surprising force and dragged Alec from Seregil’s lap onto the ground between them. His silvery eyes burned with an inner light, and his tears glowed. Those pale lips moved, forcing out a hoarse whisper. “Ah-lek.”

Growing weaker by the moment, Seregil watched as Sebrahn leaned over Alec and let his tears fall on the wounds. Everywhere a tear met blood, a white lotus sprang up, one after the other until Alec’s chest was covered in them, like a pall. Then Sebrahn threw his head back and sang again.

Seregil thought that he would die then, like the others had, but he didn’t. Instead, the piercing sound went on and on, until Seregil could feel the vibration of it in his bones and skull. One by one, the white flowers turned to light and sank into Alec’s lifeless form. When the last of them disappeared, a tremendous shudder went through the body and Alec coughed.

“Alec?” Seregil gathered him into his arms again as best he could, and held him while Alec coughed and gagged, bringing up long black clots of congealed blood. When he was done he went limp in Seregil’s arms and stared up uncomprehendingly at him. The death glaze was gone; those eyes were clear and blue and filled with consternation.

“I- ” he wheezed, fighting for breath. “I-”

“It’s all right!” Seregil was laughing and crying now, on the verge of hysteria. “You were right. Oh Illior, you were right! He saved you. Your ‘child of no woman.’ You were right all along!”

But Alec clutched Seregil’s arm, and shook his head. “I–I chose-you.”

“Yes, you did!” Seregil bent to kiss those bloody lips, but a grey mist came between them and the world slid away. He smiled as he went, though, taking the sight of Alec’s face with him into the darkness.