The Sacred Band

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Chafing from the sabotage and accidents, the Auldek halted forward progress for a time. Work crews hewed a thoroughfare through the slabs. The crews labored nonstop, through the short day and long night, lit by pitch lanterns that glowed in the howling white dark. They cut and sawed and melted the ice, creating one wide track, smooth and safe enough for the entire army, the animals, and the slaves to walk on. It took several days, and during the first few the Scav managed to set traps in the ice or pick off lone laborers and scouts. When Menteus Nemre and the sublime motion took up protecting the workers, things progressed more steadily.

A full week after the opening battle, the bulk of the Auldek force slipped through the cleared passage. Rialus watched his own station begin the journey, standing on the ice beside Sabeer one gusty, overcast day. The blizzard had cleared, but it seemed even colder for it. Rialus could not keep from shivering. He had woken several times from nightmares of being trapped within his room as his station broke through the ice and water rushed in a torrent on top of him. He had no wish to see this dream realized during the day.

Menteus Nemre stood a little distance away, legs set wide, arms crossed, surveying the progress as if he were a king and not a slave. He wore no hood. The wind tugged at his long, knotted mane of white hair, making him look every bit the leonine merging of man and beast that so perfectly embodied his totem.

“Oh, look at that,” Sabeer said. “You beauty. You’ve caught another one.”

Thinking she meant Menteus himself in some way, Rialus did not notice at first that a real snow lioness trotted toward him. She skimmed along the thoroughfare at the edge of the enormous wagon and station wheels, oblivious to the rotating danger of them. She carried a corpse in her jaws, held high to keep it from tripping her. Behind her, more feline shapes ran to keep up.

The cat went directly to Menteus. She dropped the body at his feet and circled away as he bent to inspect it. The other lions joined her, milling around, looking expectantly at the warrior. Without going any nearer, Rialus knew the corpse was a Scav. It was clothed just like the other one; bloodstained just like the other one.

Menteus took only a moment. He stood, pressed one of his booted feet against the corpse’s side, and kicked it toward the waiting animals. He coughed some command to them, and they pounced on the corpse. They tore into it, clawing at it, growling and snapping at one another.

Rialus looked away, trembling still more.

“My poor chilly boy,” Sabeer said, moving in close to blow a plume of warm air in his face. She had not been so near him in days. She slipped her hands inside his hood and rubbed his cheeks. “Rialus silver tongue, what happened to your skin?”

“Frostbite.”

“Frostbite? I thought you only stayed in your bed with your slave.”

Rialus had explained to her several times before that they did not have carnal relations. He did not go down that road again. “Still, it-it happened.”

Sabeer peered at him a moment, and then touched his cheek with her fingertip. He jerked back. “You’re a foolish man, Rialus. You must take better care of yourself. If you don’t, we’ll have to feed you to the cats. They would like that, considering that you killed one of their number.” She smiled and steered him with an arm over his shoulder. “Come, let’s go before they seek vengeance on you.”

Their walk was short. They stopped at a station that was lined up to enter the ice field. Rialus had seen it before, but had never had reason to visit it or inquire about it. Just one station out of many. A bit smaller than most, its only distinguishing features were the conical gold cap at its pinnacle and the geometry of glass panes that sectioned its roof and sides.

Sabeer entered. Rialus followed. For a moment Rialus did not know why the inside of the place seemed odd. When they reached the top of the winding staircase and came into a dim, dank room, his breath clouding the air in front of him, he realized the station was unheated, unlit except by the dull light that came through the glass panes. Sabeer did nothing about the cold, but she did strike up a spark to get a lamp burning. When she had a flame, she covered it and lengthened it. The room came into highlight and shadow.

Row upon row of shelves lined the walls around them. Tall bookcases crammed with the spines of numerous volumes, or with drawers or doors that folded open. The shelves climbed all the way to the high ceiling of the station, making it one great library, with ladders and narrow walkways scaffolding each level.

“Do you know what’s housed here?” Sabeer asked.

“No.”

“My heart. My people’s history. This collection includes our most sacred records.” She set the lamp down on the table and walked along a shelf, perusing the spines. “Individual clans have some of their own collections, but these are the volumes that we hold in trust together. Remember that I told you we can’t remember the distant past? This is where we come to be reminded of it. I come, at least. Others can’t be bothered. They even let it go unheated since our stores of pitch were depleted. I argued that this should be kept warm, but I lost. They all know how important these records are, but… we’re preoccupied with other things. As you know. This damp cannot be good for the parchment, don’t you think?”

Tossing her long hair out, she looked over her shoulder at him. The lamplight accented the auburn tones of it, and caught in her eyes in an alluring manner. Sometimes, Sabeer was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Sometimes, he forgot that she was a different race than he. Sometimes, he wanted her with a hunger made more violent for the ways in which she played with him. She knew as much. Smiling, she said, “Rialus silver tongue, you say things without even speaking. I hear you, though. I hear you.”

At her side, he looked through the volumes she found most interesting. Some of them were truly ancient, enough so that Rialus gingerly turned the brittle pages. He read accounts of battles lost to memory, preserved only here, in ink on parchment. In some ways it was no different from looking at old Acacian records, except that he knew the individuals named in these long-past events. Howlk was on the page, and Jafith with her famed attack on the Wrathic stronghold in Rath Batatt, and Devoth presiding over the terms of the Numreks’ exile.

He read of events in Sabeer’s life that she knew only from the images and thoughts the words returned to her. She guided him to passages that mentioned her. Shivering and laughing that now she was cold, she had them take off their coats. She pulled her stool behind his, scooted up close behind him, and draped the coats over them like blankets. Her inner thighs wrapped snug around him. Leaning forward to point at things on pages, her breasts pressed against his back.

“Not all the records are our own, though. Some of them, Rialus, were written by the Lothan Aklun. The most ancient ones. They gave them to us but would not translate them. At least, they did not offer and we did not ask.” She pulled another volume nearer, opened it, and ran her finger over the script. “Perhaps we once could read what they said. We might not have known then that we would forget. I can’t say, because I have forgotten. But, Rialus, part of our history is in these Lothan Aklun volumes. Perhaps important things. We can’t read them, but you can read their writing, can’t you? They were from your nation, I think. Would you translate them for us?”

“Me?” Rialus peered more closely at the pages she had opened to. The letters were looping and antiquated, formal in a way that Acacian no longer was, but it was Acacian. He could read it.

“Who better than you?” Sabeer slid one of her hands across Rialus’s thigh. He was aroused already, but the touch of her fingers sent his blood surging. “You know things about us that no other Acacian does. The writing is too complicated for the divine children to translate. It doesn’t seem right for them to read things about us that we can’t read ourselves. You understand how that could be undesirable. And if you find anything in there that speaks unfavorably about me… you’ll correct it. Hmmm? It would mean a lot to us if you did this-if you became our chronicler. It would make you an important man, Rialus. Once we have conquered your lands, this will make you a rich man, a man all Auldek will have to respect. Also, it will mean a lot to me.”

Rialus tried to stand again.

With her free hand, she turned his face toward hers. She covered his mouth with a kiss. Her lips were softer than he would have imagined. They were unbelievably lush. They were a world, and her tongue, when she slid it through his teeth, was too much for him to bear. She pulled away. “Tell me you’ll be our chronicler, Rialus. Tell me and you won’t regret it.”

T hat night, he deserted the Auldek army for the second time.

He realized he could as he lay still as death on his bed. He knew what he needed to do in order to face Mena again. Considering the placement of his station near the back of the encampment, there might not be another night as favorable as this one. He could not get the taste of Sabeer out of his mouth. I can still taste her. Stop it. Stop thinking of her. She is a bitch who would kill you in a heartbeat. He couldn’t stop thinking of her, though, and he hated that he wanted more of her. He would never be able to defy her to her face. He would never be her equal.

So he fled.

When he gauged the hour late enough, he climbed out from under his covers and carefully slipped into his many layers. He tried not to wake Fingel, but it would not matter if he did. She would say nothing. Do nothing. Care not at all about his activities. When he opened his door and felt the rush of frigid air on his face, he glanced back at her cot. Her back was turned to him, as it always had been.

The night was dark, moonless. The wind came and went in savage gusts as he climbed down to the ground. Between the gusts were long, quiet lulls. It was frigidly cold. Despite the temperature, Rialus kept his hood thrown back. He wanted all his senses, and he had them. Every touch of his feet on the ground crunched absurdly loud. It was real earth, frozen just as completely as the ice had been. He kept stopping, thinking the entire camp must have heard him. In the silence he heard motion. Was it the sound of steps or just the play of the wind on the frozen earth?

It doesn’t matter, he thought. Just go, fool!

Crouched low, he ran through the shadows of several stations. He looped away from where he knew the rhinos were penned, and soon after he was at the far edge of the encampment, the end farthest away from the Acacians and least guarded. He stopped and looked back. No movement. The stations squatted on the ice, steaming. An antok bellowed. Something groaned on the far side of the camp. He stood long enough that he imagined he could hear Nawth’s laments floating across from the ice. That got him moving again.

He had made it away from the camp and down into a dip that ran south. He shuffled fast now, his hood up. Perhaps that was why he did not hear the lioness approach. He just saw her. She crept down the slope in front of him with a feline grace that stopped Rialus in his tracks. The cat froze. She crouched. She moved forward, low to the ground, and then froze again.

Rialus closed his eyes. The thought came to him almost coolly, Kill me fast, you bitch.

When he heard the sound of movement behind him, his eyes snapped open. Another cat? He turned. A heavily furred person rushed toward him. The person raised an arm. Rialus ducked. The person collided with him, throwing something over him at the same time. Rialus saw what happened from his back, sprawled on the ground.

The object-no bigger than a child’s ball-bounced once on the ground. It ignited as it sailed up toward the crouched cat. The lioness leaped to one side but not fast enough. The ball exploded in a wide spray of liquid flame. The cat ran writhing and screaming away, a living torch. For a few moments more, at least.

The person grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up. He could not see the person’s face, hidden behind a visor, with a hood pulled snug around it. But he recognized the voice.

“Let’s go,” Fingel said. She tugged him into motion. “Fast.”