Forged In Flame (In Her Name: The First Empress, Book 2) (19 page)

“Until then,” Dara-Kol told her gently, “you must get some rest. We have a very long way to go.”

***

Two more days passed, and Keel-Tath was not sure which was worse, the blistering heat of the day or the nights filled with the terrifying sounds of beasts of prey. Most of the bone-chilling cries and roars had been far away, carried through the ravines and passes to the ears of the seven weary travelers huddled together. 

She tried not to think of how far they had to go. Their plan, such as it was, was to reach the Western Sea and find a ship flying the banner of Ku’ar-Amir, then sail with them home. But the Great Wastelands were some three hundred leagues across, and in some places more. She guessed that they were making between ten and fifteen leagues per day, if that. If fortune smiled upon them, they might make the crossing in a month’s time, assuming any of them survived.

The thought was almost enough to crush her spirit, but then she remembered that Dara-Kol had spent years wandering these lands, and had somehow not only survived, but retained her sanity.

As they gained the top of a particularly tall and steep ridge, Keel-Tath glanced back to the east, marveling at how much the landscape looked like sun-baked scales.

She saw something moving, and not very far away. Dark but instantly recognizable shapes. For a moment, she thought she was seeing things, but they did not go away, even after she had looked away and back three times.

“Warriors!” 

The others spun around, and Dara-Kol ran to her side, looking where Keel-Tath pointed.

“It is not possible,” she breathed. 

“But you said they would find a guide to lead them through these lands.”

Dara-Kol shook her head. “A guide could lead them and keep them alive, mostly, but not track us through the wastelands. I have been very careful to clear our trail. We have left no trace that another could follow, except perhaps a warrior of Ka’i-Nur.”

“Then how…?”

With a look, Dara-Kol silenced her, and Keel-Tath felt a knot of mingled fear and anger form in her stomach. We have been betrayed.

The lead enemy warriors gestured, and it was clear they had seen their intended prey.

“This could get interesting very quickly,” Ba’dur-Khan said, fingering the handle of his sword. 

“Mistress, come with me,” Dara-Kol said. “The rest of you, move ahead to the next rise and wait.”

“What are you…” Drakh-Nur began.

“Do as she commands!” Keel-Tath snapped. The others instantly saluted and obeyed.

Dara-Kol led Keel-Tath through a copse of jagged stone spires that shielded them from the eyes of the enemy warriors.

“What are we doing?” Keel-Tath asked as she loped along behind Dara-Kol, who had wound her way down to a gully that ran parallel to the one that bounded the ridge where they had just been.

“Setting an ambush, mistress.” 

As she followed Dara-Kol, Keel-Tath took momentary relief at the startlingly cool shadows at the bottom of the gully. The respite ended all too quickly as Dara-Kol once again led her out into the sun. She slowed, and was now creeping stealthily up toward the ridge near a junction of the two gullies. Keel-Tath heard the footfalls and urgent calls of the warriors who now were chasing after their companions, somewhere up ahead.

Laying on their bellies, they poked their heads over the ridge and saw the column of warriors approaching rapidly. In the gully from which the two had emerged, there were small bulges in the face of the ridge. It was the same one that Dara-Kol had guided the group away from just minutes before.

Dara-Kol took a shrekka from her shoulder, and nodded at Keel-Tath to do the same. 

“We should have brought Ri’al-Char’rah with us,” Keel-Tath said. “She is much better with a shrekka. I am not sure I can hit the hive from here.”

“I will trust you with no one until I know who betrayed us.” Dara-Kol’s voice was low and fierce. “Are you ready?”

Holding the shrekka tight, Keel-Tath nodded.

“Now!” 

The two of them rose up, took aim, and hurled their weapons at the hive, which was already crawling with
churr-kamekh
that had been disturbed by the vibrations of the approaching warriors.

Keel-Tath’s shrekka fell slightly short and gouged a hole in the bottom of one of the bulges. Water, precious water, streamed out into the gully.

Dara-Kol’s hit true, slicing through the thin wall to lodge itself deep in the nest.

The side of the hive crumbled away as the
churr-kamekh
burrowed their way out in a killing frenzy. 

“Be still!” Dara-Kol whispered, and Keel-Tath, who was on the verge of running for her life, froze.

The tiny beasts formed a living river as thousands of them flowed down the side of the ridge and into the gully, straight for the queen’s warriors, who were now pounding at a full run to catch up to Keel-Tath’s companions, who had disappeared over the ridge.

The lead warriors stumbled as they ran into the swirling mass of
churr-kamekh
, then screamed as the creatures engulfed them, stinging with their long barbed tails and biting exposed flesh with their mandibles. The warriors coming along behind, perhaps thinking they had been ambushed, surged forward, swords at the ready.

They, too, were quickly covered by the tiny, enraged creatures. 

Keel-Tath shuddered at the sound. It was not only the screams, but the clicking-hissing noises made by the creatures as they attacked. 

“Pull back!” It was a voice that Keel-Tath recognized. Shil-Wular. “Withdraw! Now!”

Dara-Kol patted her on the shoulder. “It is time for us to go.”

Instead of heading right to the others, as Keel-Tath expected, Dara-Kol led her down into the gully toward the hive. 

“What are you doing?” Keel-Tath could not help but be terrified.

“When the hive attacks, all but the queen and a small group of special warriors, guardians, leave the nest. The water is safe to take for as long as the rest of the hive is occupied.”

Letting her trust in Dara-Kol displace her own fear, Keel-Tath followed until the two of them were right below the breach in the hive made by Keel-Tath’s shrekka. 

The two of them uncapped their water bags and held the openings to the water that still streamed from the hive. In short order, the bags were full.

“Come,” Dara-Kol said. The screams in the other gully were fading. “The
churr-kamekh
will be returning soon.”

With their bounty of water slung over their backs, they ran to rejoin the others.

***

Throughout the rest of the day, there was no sign of the queen’s warriors. Dara-Kol drove her charges mercilessly, taking breaks in the cool shadows of a handy gully only when Han-Ukha’i, who was not conditioned to such hardships, could go no farther. 

Much to Keel-Tath’s surprise, Dara-Kol had not brought up the subject of treachery with the others. But there was no mistaking the penetrating gaze she gave each of the companions after they had rejoined the group, and she never let Keel-Tath stray more than a sword’s length from her side.

As evening came and the others looked forward to a much-needed break, Dara-Kol had another surprise for them.

“We will push on through the night,” she said to an incredulous group. Han-Ukha’i visibly sagged, but said nothing. The others, even Lihan-Hagir, groaned. 

“May I ask why?” Ba’dur-Khan said, his voice carefully neutral. “You said we were much more likely to be attacked by predators. And from the sounds we have heard in the night since entering the wastelands, I can see why you advocated that caution. What now causes you to set it aside?”

“We need to increase the lead we have on those pursuing us. Traveling at night will also make it much more difficult for them to track us.” She paused. “We will also head northwest for a few days. They know we are heading for the coast, for there is nowhere else to go in the wastelands other than Ka’i-Nur, which lies southwest of us. Hopefully this little diversion will help us elude them.”

The others turned to look at Keel-Tath. “It will be as Dara-Kol says,” she told them firmly. “It will be difficult, but perhaps we will be able to take some rest in the morning.” 

Dara-Kol nodded. “We will find a safe gully where it is cool, and I will find another hive where we can all refill our water bags.” While Dara-Kol and Keel-Tath had filled theirs and shared them around, the others were running perilously low. 

“Let us go, then,” Keel-Tath said. “It is going to be a long night.”

***

In the darkness, their way lit only by the stars, for the Great Moon had not yet risen, the companions threaded their way through the endless forest of treacherous rock. They moved slowly and with great caution, making as little noise as possible. Around them, through the gullies and canyons, echoed the grunts and squeals of the things that had emerged from their daytime lairs to hunt. These were the most dangerous creatures of their world outside the oceans, for here there were no prey animals, only predators that fed on other predators.

“Dara-Kol,” Drakh-Nur said as the group huddled to partake of some dried meat and water, “why are we heading to the southwest? You said we would be going northwest. I know how to read the stars, and we have been going in the wrong direction.”

The others stopped chewing the tough meat and stared at their guide. Keel-Tath watched their expressions, looking for anything amiss, some clue as to the one who had betrayed them, but she could tell nothing. She could see their faces well enough in the dark, but they all showed equal measures of surprise.

“Yes, I did. But after some thought I decided that heading in the direction of Ka’i-Nur would be best. It is the home of the Dark Queen, and they would not expect us to go any closer to it than we must.”

“Thank you for letting us know.” Ri’al-Char’rah huffed as she took another bite of her meat.

“What difference would it make?” Keel-Tath tore off a strip of meat and stuffed it into her mouth. It was tough as the leatherite armor she wore and salty, but her mouth was awash in saliva, she was so hungry. “None of us know the way, so knowing the direction we take matters little.”

The others bowed to her logic, but they fell silent, unhappy.

When they were finished, Dara-Kol got them up and moving again. She and Keel-Tath had to help Han-Ukha’i to her feet. 

“I am sorry, my mistress,” the healer said, and Keel-Tath could feel the echo of her shame in her blood. “I do not wish to be a burden.”

“That is the last thing you are in my eyes,” Keel-Tath told her. “I owe you a debt I can never repay.”

As usual, Dara-Kol took the lead, and they trudged onward. Keel-Tath was behind her, followed by Han-Ukha’i, then the hulking Drakh-Nur, Ba’dur-Khan, Ri’al-Char’rah, with Lihan-Hagir bringing up the rear. 

Perhaps an hour had passed when Lihan-Hagir appeared at Dara-Kol’s side, making urgent gestures with his hands. Keel-Tath could see that his head was bleeding from a gash in his temple.

“Stop,” Dara-Kol whispered to the others. 

Keel-Tath leaned closer, watching the mute warrior gesture. “What does he say?” 

“Ri’al-Char’rah is gone.”

“How can she be gone?” Drakh-Nur rumbled, and Keel-Tath gestured for him to keep his voice down. He lowered his voice to what, for him, qualified as a whisper. “She cannot have simply disappeared!”

Looking back at Lihan-Hagir, Dara-Kol said, “She did not just disappear. Lihan-Hagir says she attacked him, then fled our company to find Shil-Wular and his warriors.” Bitterness clouded her voice and the song of her blood. “She has betrayed us to the Dark Queen.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Betrayal

“How…how can this be true?” Ba’dur-Khan looked ill as Han-Ukha’i tended Lihan-Hagir’s wound. “And why? What could compel her to betray us?”

“We may never know,” Keel-Tath said, trying to come to grips with her own disbelief. She had not known Ri’al-Char’rah well, of course, but nothing the young warrior had ever done or said, nothing in the song of her blood, had given the slightest indication that she was anything more or less than what she appeared to be. She turned to Dara-Kol. “What is important is what we do now.”

“I say we turn northwest,” Drakh-Nur suggested. “She will know that we are heading this direction, and will so say to Shil-Wular. Going northwest will throw them off our trail and put the most distance between us.”

“Why not simply go west, directly toward the sea?” Ba’dur-Khan countered. “We are wasting too much time with this diversion. If the queen sends enough warriors into the wastelands, she will eventually find us. Our only hope is to simply outdistance them and reach the coast as quickly as we can.”

“Both of those paths have merit,” Dara-Kol told them. “One thing is for certain: we dare not stay on our present course.” She turned to Keel-Tath. “Which path would you choose, mistress?”

Keel-Tath swallowed, not expecting to be faced with this particular decision. So far on this trek, they had placed their lives entirely in Dara-Kol’s hands. “I think…” She frowned, considering. “I believe we should head west. If the land were not so harsh, I would be more inclined to follow Drakh-Nur’s counsel. But every day we spend here is an agony for us all, with death close at hand even when trying to obtain water. Let us push hard to the west and leave the queen’s warriors behind us, hopefully heading southwest, in the wrong direction.”

“So shall it be done.” With one last look behind them, Dara-Kol turned to the west and resumed the cautious march through the dark wastelands. 

With heavy hearts, the others followed behind her.

***

Other than short breaks to eat and take a drink of their precious water, Dara-Kol did not let them rest for another two full days. Han-Ukha’i passed out several times, and Drakh-Nur carried her. 

At last, they reached an especially high ridge near dusk. Dara-Kol left them there while she scouted ahead. Keel-Tath, who was so exhausted she could barely stand, marveled at how Dara-Kol was still able to function. Nothing seemed to slow her down. The others were in somewhat better shape than Keel-Tath, but she could tell that even Drakh-Nur was nearing the end of his endurance.