Once the wood was gathered, the soldiers began a new pile—this one of bodies. The soldiers went searching through the city, seeking the corpses of Elantrians who had been slain. Lukel realized something as he watched the pile grow. They weren’t all dead. In fact, most of them weren’t.
Most of them had wounds so grievous that it sickened Lukel to look at them, yet their arms and legs twitched, their lips moving. Elantrians, Lukel thought with amazement, the dead whose minds continue to live.
The pile of bodies grew higher. There were hundreds of them, all of the Elantrians that had been collecting in the city for ten years. None of them resisted; they simply allowed themselves to be heaped, their eyes uncaring, until the pile of bodies was larger than the pile of wood.
“Twenty-seven steps to the bodies,” Adien whispered suddenly, walking away from the crowd of nobles. Lukel reached for his brother, but it was too late.
A soldier yelled for Adien to get back with the others. Adien didn’t respond. Angry, the soldier slashed at Adien with a sword, leaving a large gash in his chest. Adien stumbled, but kept walking. No blood came from the wound. The soldier’s eyes opened wide, and he jumped back, making a ward against evil. Adien approached the pile of Elantrians and joined its ranks, flopping down among them and then lying still.
Adien’s secret of five years had finally been revealed. He had joined his people.
“I remember you, Hrathen.” Dilaf was smiling now, his grin wicked and demonic. “I remember you as a boy, when you came to us. It was just before I left for Arelon. You were frightened then, as you are frightened now. You ran from us, and I watched you go with satisfaction. You were never meant to be Dakhor—you are far too weak.”
Hrathen felt chilled. “You were there?”
“I was gragdet by then, Hrathen,” Dilaf said. “Do you remember me?”
Then, looking into the man’s eyes, Hrathen had a flash of remembrance. He remembered evil eyes in the body of a tall, unmerciful man. He remembered chants. He remembered fires. He remembered screams—his screams—and a face hanging above him. They were the same eyes.
“You!” Hrathen said with a gasp.
“You remember.”
“I remember,” Hrathen said with a dull chill. “You were the one that convinced me to leave. In my third month, you demanded that one of your monks use his magic and send you to Wyrn’s palace. The monk complied, giving up his life to transport you a distance that you could have walked in fifteen minutes.”
“Absolute obedience is required, Hrathen,” Dilaf whispered. “Occasional tests and examples bring loyalty from the rest.” Then, pausing, he looked out over the bay. The armada was docked, waiting as per Dilaf’s order. Hrathen scanned the horizon, and he could see several dark specks—the tips of masts. Wyrn’s army was coming.
“Come,” Dilaf ordered, rising to his feet. “We have been successful; the Teoish armada has docked. They will not be able to stop our fleet from landing. I have only one duty remaining—the death of King Eventeo.”
A vision sprung into Raoden’s impassive mind. He tried to ignore it. Yet, for some reason, it refused to leave. He saw it through the shimmering surface of his pain—a simple picture.
It was Aon Rao. A large square with four circles around it, lines connecting them to the center. It was a widely used Aon—especially among the Korathi—for its meaning. Spirit. Soul.
Floating in the white eternity, Raoden’s mind tried to discard the image of Aon Rao. It was something from a previous existence, unimportant and forgotten. He didn’t need it any longer. Yet, even as he strove to remove the image, another sprung up in its place.
Elantris. Four walls forming a square. The four outer cities surrounding it, their borders circles. A straight road leading from each city to Elantris.
Merciful Domi!
The soldiers opened several barrels of oil, and Lukel watched with revulsion as they began pouring them over the heap of bodies. Three shirtless warriors stood at the side, singing some sort of chant in a foreign language that sounded too harsh and unfamiliar to be Fjordell. We will be next, Lukel realized.
“Don’t look,” Lukel ordered his family, turning away as the soldiers prepared Elantris for immolation.
King Eventeo stood in the distance, a small honor guard surrounding him. He bowed his head as Dilaf approached. The monk smiled, preparing his knife. Eventeo though he was presenting his country for surrender—he didn’t realize that he was offering it up for a sacrifice.
Hrathen walked beside Dilaf, thinking about necessity and duty. Men would die, true, but their loss would not be meaningless. The entire Fjordell Empire would grow stronger for the victory over Teod. The hearts of men would increase in faith. It was the same thing Hrathen himself had done in Arelon. He had tried to convert the people for political reasons, using politics and popularity. He had bribed Telrii to convert, giving no heed to saving the man’s soul. It was the same thing. What was a nation of unbelievers when compared with all of Shu-Dereth?
Yet, even as he rationalized, his stomach grew sick.
I was sent to save these people, not to slaughter them!
Dilaf held Princess Sarene by the neck, her mouth gagged. Eventeo looked up and smiled reassuringly as they approached. He could not see the knife in Dilaf’s hand.
“I have waited for this,” Dilaf whispered softly. At first, Hrathen thought the priest referred to the destruction of Teod. But Dilaf wasn’t looking at the king. He was looking at Sarene, the blade of his knife pressed into her back.
“You, Princess, are a disease,” Dilaf whispered in Sarene’s ear, his voice barely audible to Hrathen. “Before you came to Kae, even the Arelenes hated Elantris. You are the reason they forgot that loathing. You associated with the unholy ones, and you even descended to their level. You are worse than they are—you are one who is not cursed, but seeks to be cursed. I considered killing your father first and making you watch, but now I realize it will be much worse the other way around. Think of old Eventeo watching you die, Princess. Ponder that image as I send you to Jaddeth’s eternal pits of torment.”
She was crying, the tears staining her gag.
Raoden struggled toward consciousness. The pain hit him like an enormous block of stone, halting his progress, his mind recoiling in agony. He threw himself against it, and the torment washed over him. He slowly forced his way through the resistant surface, coming to a laborious awareness of the world outside himself.
He wanted to scream, to scream over and over again. The pain was incredible. However, with the pain, he felt something else. His body. He was moving, being dragged along the ground. Images washed into his mind as sight returned. He was being pulled toward something round and blue.
The pool.
NO! he thought desperately. Not yet! I know the answer!
Raoden screamed suddenly, twitching. Galladon was so surprised that he dropped the body.
Raoden stumbled forward, trying to get his footing, and fell directly into the pool.
CHAPTER 61
Dilaf reached around the princess to press his dagger against her neck. Eventeo’s eyes opened wide with horror.
Hrathen watched the dagger begin to slice Sarene’s skin. He thought of Fjorden. He thought of the work he had done, the people he had saved. He thought of a young boy, eager to prove his faith by entering the priesthood. Unity.
“No!” Spinning, Hrathen drove his fist into Dilaf’s face.
Dilaf stumbled for a moment, lowering his weapon in surprise. Then the monk looked up with rage and plunged the dagger at Hrathen’s breast.
The knife slid off Hrathen’s armor, scraping ineffectually along the painted steel. Dilaf regarded the breastplate with stunned eyes. “But, that armor is just for show….”
“You should know by now, Dilaf,” Hrathen said, bringing his armored forearm up and smashing it into the monk’s face. Though the unnatural bone had resisted Hrathen’s fist, it crunched with a satisfying sound beneath steel. “Nothing I do is just for show.?
??
Dilaf fell, and Hrathen pulled the monk’s sword free from its scabbard. “Launch your ships, Eventeo!” he yelled. “Fjorden’s armies come not to dominate, but to massacre. Move now if you want to save your people!”
“Rag Domi!” Eventeo cursed, yelling for his generals. Then he paused. “My daughter—”
“I will help the girl!” Hrathen snapped. “Save your kingdom, you fool!”
Though Dakhor bodies were unnaturally quick, their minds recovered from shock no more quickly than those of regular men. Their surprise bought Hrathen a few vital seconds. He brought his sword up, shoving Sarene toward an alleyway and backing up to block the entrance.
The water held Raoden in a cool embrace. It was a thing alive; he could hear it calling in his mind. Come, it said, I give you release. It was a comforting parent. It wanted to take away his pain and sorrows, just as his mother had once done.
Come, it pled. You can finally give up.
No, Raoden thought. Not yet.
The Fjordells finished dousing the Elantrians with oil, then prepared their torches. During the entire process, Shuden moved his arms in restrained circular patterns, not increasing their speed as he had the time at the fencing class. Lukel began to wonder if Shuden wasn’t planning an assault at all, but simply preparing himself for the inevitable.
Then Shuden burst into motion. The young baron snapped forward, spinning like a dancer as he brought his fist around, driving it into the chest of a chanting warrior monk. There was an audible crack, and Shuden spun again, slapping the monk across the face. The demon’s head spun completely around, his eyes bulging as his reinforced neck snapped.
And Shuden did it all with his eyes closed. Lukel couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw something else—a slight glow following Shuden’s movements in the dawn shadows.
Yelling a battle cry—more to motivate himself than frighten his foes—Lukel grabbed the table leg and swung it at a soldier. The wood bounced off the man’s helmet, but the blow was powerful enough to daze him, so Lukel followed it with a solid blow to the face. The soldier dropped and Lukel grabbed his weapon.
Now he had a sword. He only wished he knew how to use it.
The Dakhor were faster, stronger, and tougher, but Hrathen was more determined. For the first time in years, his heart and his mind agreed. He felt power—the same strength he had felt that first day when he had arrived in Arelon, confident in his ability to save its people.
He held them off, though just barely. Hrathen might not have been a Dakhor monk, but he was a master swordsman. What he lacked in comparative strength and speed he could compensate for in skill. He swung, thrusting his sword at a Dakhor chest, slamming it directly in between two bone ridges. The blade slid past enlarged ribs, piercing the heart. The Dakhor gasped, dropping as Hrathen whipped his sword free. The monk’s companions, however, forced Hrathen to retreat defensively into the alleyway.
He felt Sarene stumbling behind him, pulling off her gag. “There are too many!” she said. “You can’t fight them all.”
She was right. Fortunately, a wave moved through the crowd of warriors, and Hrathen heard the sounds of battle coming from the other side. Eventeo’s honor guard had joined the affray.
“Come on,” Sarene said, tugging his shoulder. Hrathen risked a glance behind him. The princess was pointing at a slightly ajar door in the building next to them. Hrathen nodded, battering away another attack, then turned to run.
Raoden burst from the water, gasping reflexively for breath. Galladon and Karata jumped back in surprise. Raoden felt the cool blue liquid streaming from his face. It wasn’t water, but something else. Something thicker. He paid it little heed as he crawled from the pool.
“Sule!” Galladon whispered in surprise.
Raoden shook his head, unable to respond. They had expected him to dissolve—they didn’t understand that the pool couldn’t take him unless he wanted it to.
“Come,” he finally rasped, stumbling to his feet.
Despite Lukel’s energetic assault and Shuden’s powerful attack, the other townspeople simply stood and watched in dumb stupefaction. Lukel found himself desperately fighting three soldiers; the only reason he stayed alive was because he did more dodging and running than actual attacking. When aid finally did come, it was given by an odd source: the women.
Several of Sarene’s fencers snatched up pieces of wood or fallen swords and fell in behind Lukel, thrusting with more control and ability than he could even feign to know. The brunt of their onslaught was pushed forward by surprise, and for a moment Lukel thought they might actually break free.
Then Shuden fell, crying out as a sword bit into his arm. As soon as the Jindo’s concentration broke, so did his war dance, and a simple club to the head knocked him from the battle. The old queen, Eshen, fell next, a sword rammed through her chest. Her horrible scream, and the sight of the blood streaming down her dress, unnerved the other women. They broke, dropping their weapons. Lukel took a long gash on the thigh as one of his foes realized he had no clue how to use his weapon.
Lukel yelled in pain and fell to the cobblestones, holding his leg. The soldier didn’t even bother to finish him off.
Raoden dashed down the side of the mountain at a horrifying pace. The prince leapt and scrambled, as if he hadn’t been practically comatose just a few minutes earlier. One slip at this pace, one wrong step, and he wouldn’t stop rolling until he hit the foot of the mountain.
“Doloken!” Galladon said, trying his best to keep up. At this rate they would reach Kae in a matter of minutes.
Sarene hid beside her unlikely rescuer, holding perfectly still in the darkness.
Hrathen looked up through the floorboards. He had been the one to spot the cellar door, pulling it open and shoving her though. Underneath they had found a terrified family huddled in the blackness. They had all waited quietly, tense, as the Dakhor moved through the house then left out the front door.
Eventually, Hrathen nodded. “Let’s go,” he said, reaching over to lift the trapdoor.
“Stay down here,” Sarene told the family. “Don’t come up until you absolutely have to.”
The gyorn’s armor clinked as he climbed the steps, then peeked cautiously into the room. He motioned for Sarene to follow, then moved into the small kitchen at the back of the house. He began pulling off his armor, dropping its pieces to the floor. Though he gave no explanation, Sarene understood the action. The bloodred gyorn’s armor was far too distinctive to be worth its protective value.
As he worked, Sarene was surprised at the apparent weight of the metal. “You’ve been walking around all these months in real armor? Wasn’t that difficult?”
“The burden of my calling,” Hrathen said, pulling off his final greave. Its bloodred paint was now scratched and dented. “A calling I no longer deserve.” He dropped it with a clank.
He looked at the greave, then shook his head, pulling off his bulky cotton underclothing, meant to cushion the armor. He stood bare-chested, wearing only a pair of thin, knee-length trousers and a long, sleevelike band of cloth around his right arm.
Why the covered arm? Sarene wondered. Some piece of Derethi priest’s garb? Other questions were more pressing, however.
“Why did you do it, Hrathen?” she asked. “Why turn against your people?”
Hrathen paused. Then he looked away. “Dilaf’s actions are evil.”
“But your faith …”
“My faith is in Jaddeth, a God who wants the devotion of men. A massacre does not serve Him.”
“Wyrn seems to think differently.”
Hrathen did not respond, instead selecting a cloak from a nearby chest. He handed it to her, then took another for himself. “Let us go.”
Raoden’s feet were so covered with bumps, lacerations, and scrapes that he no longer related to them as pieces of flesh. They were simply lumps of pain burning at the end of his legs.
But still he ran on. He knew that if he stopped, the pain wou
ld claim him once again. He wasn’t truly free—his mind was on loan, returned from the void to perform a single task. When he was finished, the white nothingness would suck him down into its oblivion again.
He stumbled toward the city of Kae, feeling as much as seeing his way.
Lukel lay dazed as Jalla pulled him back toward the mass of terrified townspeople. His leg throbbed, and he could feel his body weakening as blood spilled from the long gash. His wife bound it as best she could, but Lukel knew that the action was pointless. Even if she did manage to stop the bleeding, the soldiers were only going to kill them in a few moments anyway.
He watched in despair as one of the bare-chested warriors tossed a torch onto the pile of Elantrians. The oil-soaked bodies burst into flames.
The demon-man nodded to several soldiers, who pulled out their weapons and grimly advanced on the huddled townspeople.
_______
“What is he doing?” Karata demanded as they reached the bottom of the slope. Raoden was still ahead of them, running in an unsteady gait toward Kae’s short border wall.
“I don’t know,” Galladon said. Ahead, Raoden grabbed a long stick from the ground, then he started to run, dragging the length of wood behind him.
What are you up to, sule? Galladon wondered. Yet he could feel stubborn hope rising again. “Whatever it is, Karata, it is important. We must see that he finishes.” He ran after Raoden, following the prince along his path.
After a few minutes, Karata pointed ahead of them. “There!” A squad of six Fjordell guards, probably searching the city for stragglers, walked along the inside of Kae’s border wall. The lead soldier noticed Raoden and raised a hand.
“Come on,” Galladon said, dashing after Raoden with sudden strength. “No matter what else happens, Karata, don’t let them stop him!”
Raoden barely heard the men approaching, and he only briefly recognized Galladon and Karata running up behind him, desperately throwing themselves at the soldiers. His friends were unarmed; a voice in the back of his head warned that they would not be able to win him much time.