Path of the Crushed Heart: Book Four of the Serpent Catch Series (7 page)

Nothing happened.

She squeezed it again while the Blade Kin shot Phylomon. She could see now that his blue skin had faded to white, and finally one Blade Kin shouted for his men to stop firing.

An old Blade Kin commander, a man with a black robe and an eye patch, went to the white body of Phylomon, kicked him onto his back.

The commander stood gazing down for a long moment, grinning.

Darrissea sobbed, tried to pull away and rush to Phylomon.

Fava grabbed her arm and said “Listen!”

The gunfire had stopped, and they turned and peered back over the city. On the hill, their view unobstructed, they could see that everywhere thousands of fires lit the streets and slaves were issuing from hovels, hacking the dead Hukm, leaping for joy and shouting in celebration.

“They don’t understand,” Fava whispered. “They don’t understand what we tried to give them. They think they’ve won. It’s the end of the world.”

Fava grabbed Darrissea’s wrist, and together they faded back into an alley, away from the fires, and stopped to hold each other.

***

Chapter 10: The Promise

Tull lay in his cell, not knowing whether it was night or day. He’d wakened to a tremble, thinking a quake had struck, but the trembling soon ceased.

An hour later, he heard the guards shouting, jubilant voices, and went to the cell door and gazed down the hall.

It was choked with men, armored guards in heavy woolen cloaks. They came to his cell in a knot, shouting and talking excitedly, one of them saying, “Careful, careful,” and someone else explained, “I have his foot. I have it!” They opened a door to the cell across the narrow hallway from Tull, and deposited their prisoner.

At first Tull thought it a corpse, for he saw only a long, narrow, ash-gray hand, yet as they turned the corner by his cell, he saw the thin face, the hairless brows, and recognized Phylomon.

The guards dumped the Starfarer in then cell, then slammed the door and made it sure with chains.

“Phylomon?” Tull called once the guards had left, but the Starfarer did not answer. Tull watched, unsure if Phylomon were breathing or if he only imagined it.

At long last, Phylomon moved a single finger. Tull heard the clanging of metal doors, heavy boot steps, and the hallway filled with people again.

Mahkawn came into the prison, leading a tall man who wore red robes with a deep hood. Tull somehow hoped that Mahkawn would speak to him, but the Black Cyclops ignored him, and instead the two stood looking at Phylomon.

“Are you sure you left him alive?” the man in red asked.

“Yes, My Lord,” Mahkawn said. “Barely.”

Tull could think of only one person who ranked higher than Mahkawn, and he was amazed to see the Slave Lord. Tantos stood tall—almost as tall as Phylomon’s seven feet—as if he held the pure blood of the Starfarers of old. Tantos had his back to Tull, so that Tull could not see his face.

“Remove the straw from Phylomon’s cell,” Tantos said, “so that he does not eat it and receive nourishment. See that he gets no food or drink for one month. At the end of that time, bring his skin to me.”

“Yes, My Lord,” Mahkawn answered. “If you wish, we can skin him alive for you now. He is very weak.”

Tantos leaned forward, wrapped his lean hands around the bars of Phylomon’s cell, and Tull saw that they were red, as dark red as a cardinal. “No. He has done me great harm these past two centuries. I want him to die slowly.”

“I could arrange that,” Mahkawn said. “A little water would keep him longer.”

“No it wouldn’t,” Tantos said. “I killed his brother by keeping him in a pit for months, without food or drink. The symbiote wrung water from the air, as much as it could. Phylomon’s symbiote has been his ally these many centuries, but without food or water, it will be forced to eat him. That torture is more exquisite than anything you could devise.”

Tantos turned. Tull saw a brief flash of his face under the deep hood, a crimson face without hair or lashes.

The guards returned, chained Phylomon where he lay.

Tull counted the days by the number of meals served, and for the next four days he sat in his cell, and from time to time he would get up and look at Phylomon. The blue man lay on his back, his right hand in the air as if grasping something, his head turned to the left. He did not move in four days, outside the shallowest breathing, and sometimes Tull would speak to him in the darkness, try to say something to comfort the dying man.

Finally, once when the torches were burned down to stubs and fluttered in their sconces, Phylomon moaned in pain, begging, “Water.”

“There is no water,” Tull replied, and the blue man lay silent for a long time. Khur was sleeping in his cell.

Phylomon spoke softly. “Chaa said … that you could throw down the Slave Lords. He said … you could destroy them, if you get free.”

Tull went to the bars of his cell and pressed his face tightly against them. Phylomon lay in the same position, unmoved, and if Tull hadn’t heard the words, he would have sworn that the mound couldn’t speak.

“What did he say?” Tull asked.

“Before we captured the serpents, Chaa, told me … you would throw down the slave lords.” Phylomon’s dry lips barely moved. “He told me, I’d die, horribly.”

“Is it horrible?” Tull asked.

“I feel the symbiote,” Phylomon said at last, “consuming. It has … kept me alive—centuries. Now, I keep it alive.”

Tull said, “In order to get free, the Blade Kin want me to become like them. They want to put me in the arena, and they want me to fight other innocent men.”

“They want you to fight … criminals, who deserve to die.” Phylomon argued.

“But some do not,” Tull said.

“I have battled … a thousand years. Watched, half a million, innocent men—die. Carry on that fight. Their blood is on your hands. Free yourself.”

Tull squatted, thinking. “I’m afraid,” he said at last. “To kill innocent men is … Mahkawn knows me. He sees himself in me. It would be too easy to become like him.”

Phylomon did not answer, and lay as if sleeping. Tull strained against his chains, snapping them at odd angles, trying to find some way to pull them from the ground. But the chains were well anchored, and hours of struggling had bought him only bloodied limbs.

Phylomon did not speak for the rest of the day.

On the next, his chest began to heave, and he gasped for air. After a long time, he retched and choked on his vomit, then stopped breathing altogether.

Tull called for the guards, told them what had happened, and they brought Tantos and Mahkawn down to witness the death.

Tantos studied the body for a long time, felt for a pulse, then said, “Leave it, for another three weeks. Do not let him out of his chains.”

“But he’s dead!” Mahkawn countered. “Smell him. He’s beginning to stink.”

“Perhaps the body is dead, but not the skin,” Tantos said, then he left.

For the following week, Tull worked at his chains daily. He watched Phylomon’s body rot, saw flies enter the man’s mouth and lay their eggs, watched as the belly swelled and erupted with maggots.

The reek become loathsome beyond belief, as if Phylomon were a dozen corpses, and the guards began to shun Tull’s part of the prison, giving him more time to work his chains.

Until one night ten Blade Kin dressed in the green cloaks of the city guard came and brought Tull some news, “You will fight in the arena tomorrow, and if you win, you may give your ear to become one of us.”

Then the men held him down and broke both his thumbs with a hammer.

That night, as Tull lay in pain, he dared dream of destroying the nations of Craal and Bashevgo, of killing their armies and tearing down their prisons.

He dreamed of Fava fighting beside him.

***

Chapter 11: Born to the City of Despair

The predawn fog came thick as a blanket, scented with smoke and blood. Fires still burned across town in the gloam, flickering red.

Fava and Darrissea walked the streets of a city that seemed impossibly large, peering among the white-furred corpses. Since the south wall had been best defended, the large females had made up the southern attack force while the smaller male Hukm had gone north.

Because of this, Fava and Darrissea found themselves walking the streets looking at the bodies of slaughtered women, thousands upon thousands of them, gray shadows in the early morning. They had never imagined in the darkness that so many Hukm had died in the battle.

They found Ironwood Woman, the great queen of the Hukm, lying on her stomach in a pool of her own blood at the edge of town, the great oak-bead necklace identifying her more than the twisted features in her face.

Fava and Darrissea used all their strength to turn the queen over.

“She almost made it,” Fava said, nodding toward the gates by the docks south of town. Darrissea began to weep, little coughing spasms that jerked out of her. “Don’t do that,” Fava warned. “We must act like Blade Kin now.”

“What’s the purpose?” Darrissea asked. “Everyone is dead. Ironwood Woman. Phylomon. Even if we find our friends and manage to sneak them out of town, everyone is dead, and there is no place to run.”

Fava looked down at the twisted features of Ironwood Woman.

“Not me,” she said. “I’m not dead. I will never die.” She ground her teeth. Thor would be rising soon. Already it was casting a strange orange glow through the fog. A brown deer tick was crawling in the fur by Ironwood Woman’s large, too-human ear.

“What are you thinking?” Darrissea said.

Fava sat down on her heels, closed Ironwood Woman’s eyes. “Phylomon lived for a thousand years and fought the Blade Kin. Even if he is dead, his skin is not. He has made me a fader and given me some power. What if I were to take Phylomon’s skin? I could fight them forever.”

Darrissea looked up into Fava’s eyes, held them for a moment. “You would be killed, like Phylomon.”

“Still,” Fava said, “we must make certain that Phylomon’s skin does not fall into the wrong hands.”

“You have
owe taxa
, worms in the head,” Darrissea said.

“Not worms,” Fava said. “Hope.” A bell rang to the north of them.

“Where are we going to stay?” Darrissea asked. “Do they have inns here?”

Fava looked up and down the street. “They must, somewhere. We can find one when it gets light.”

Across the city in the predawn fog, people exited their houses. Fava realized that the bell had been a signal—something to tell common slaves they could come out.

Within five minutes, the streets filled. Slaves began cleaning, moving dead Hukm into carts without supervision. Many of them carried torches.

A hundred Blade Kin marched out of the fog, and the commander looked at Fava’s and Darrissea’s uniforms, ordered them back to their company, jerking his head north.

North,
Fava thought.
Perhaps we can find a band of the Okanjara warriors yet.

The women headed back up through town, walking nearly a mile, and found Blade Kin everywhere forming into groups of hundreds and thousands. Soon the streets were swirling with Blade Kin, alive with the march of feet, the sounds of drums, and all warriors were heading south to try to overtake the escaping Hukm by daylight. The slaves cheered and leaned precariously from their windows, urging them on, waving rags.

The Blade Kin are heroes,
Fava realized, and at last a company came by that was uniformed as Fava and Darrissea were.

The commander stopped momentarily, studied their faces as if trying to place them. He was an older man, a human with a strong jaw, black pearls for eyes, and graying hair. He wore a silver dragon pin on his cape, and many in his command carried torches to light the way.

He pounded his chest in salute, and the girls saluted back. The streets seemed alive now with the roar of applause, the drums, the marching feet.

The Dragon Captain shouted at the women, his eyes burning with accusation, but the words were carried away by the noise of the streets. Fava leaned forward to hear, and the Dragon Captain pointed to the ground behind him, shouted again.

Darrissea grabbed Fava’s arm, frightened, and they fell in line, hurrying downhill. The streets were a fiery river in the fog, dark bodies of Blade Kin in black leather armor and red capes, carrying torches, flowing downhill like a river of lava to the frozen sea. The walls of houses were canyon walls, forbidding, rising on each side.

Fava and Darrissea marched downhill, south, bone weary.

Fava had not slept for nearly twenty-four hours, and they were marching, pushed from behind by those Blade Kin who were most eager to fight, and soon it all became a swirling in her mind.

They marched to the sea, and in the foot-deep snow the Blade Kin began to run, a great race to overtake the Hukm. Fava had no choice but to run, too. She paced herself, loping beside Darrissea, and soon found that she was gasping for breath, trying to keep up.

She scooped snow into her hands to cool her burning tongue, found it odd that she was so hot when they were running through white fog and snow.

Everywhere around her was a sea of bodies and torches, and she fought her way for each step, afraid that if she slowed, she would be trampled.

At least we are going the right way,
Fava thought. The Hukm had left their mammoths in the hills so that they could make a hasty retreat, and now the Blade Kin were rushing headlong toward them.

Fava glanced up at the rising moon, turned and realized Darrissea had moved aside. She realized that the weaker human was growing delirious. Fava ran and grasped the girl’s hand.

They rushed across the frozen sea and suddenly turned—on orders—heading east, using the sea as a road, and Fava realized that someone must have spied the Hukm with their herds of mammoths, must have guessed the direction that they would flee. They ran for nearly an hour more and their feet were a dull roar on the ice.

The fog was thick so low, and Fava could see nothing ahead. She began to fall behind.

Then she heard a distant rumbling, like the sound of thunder. The ice vibrated under her feet, but she still ran forward, saw men halting, throwing up their hands in indecision.

“They’re charging! They’re charging!” someone shouted, and then the Blade Kin turned and retreated, racing back toward her through the mist.

A mammoth charged before Fava realized the danger.

One moment she was fighting through the fog, and the next a mammoth charged past her, a great black mountain of flesh with curving ivory tusks, a young Hukm upon its back, urging it forward.

Guns discharged, and Fava was stunned to realize that she was so close to some front, and then another mammoth rushed past her, and another, and another trampled a man beside her, and the thunder of mammoths stampeding over the ice roared in her ears.

The Hukm are killing themselves
, Fava realized, looking at the young Hukm,
taking the Blade Kin with them rather than surrender.

Fava turned, saw men behind her fleeing, saw that in fact most Blade Kin were well on their way. She spun again. A dark mammoth bore down on her, twisting its head from side to side, well aware that it was supposed to maul her.

The child that drove it aimed for her unerringly, and Fava pressed her ivory button.

The world went still. Darrissea stood only a few feet from Fava, mouth agape.

Fava grabbed the girl and dragged her forward in a fog that seemed as thick as water—pushed Darrissea up on the mammoth’s back.

Fava climbed up by grabbing the mammoth’s long hair. From the mammoth’s hump, she looked down over the battlefield and saw torchbearers in the fog, saw mammoths around her. Many did not have riders.

The Hukm had left nearly thirty thousand mammoths in the hills south of town. Now all of them seemed to be on the ice.

The fader did not give her its full five minutes.

One second Fava stood on the mammoth surveying the battlefield, and the next the mammoth lurched forward and she was clinging for her life as it charged.

Darrissea screamed and grabbed Fava, then caught hold of the mammoth. They thundered through the darkness, flakes of snow flying up to slap their faces.

The Blade Kin were no match in the snow. They could not run nearly as fast as the mammoths, and Fava’s driver cut several of them down before a Blade Kin shot the boy.

Still the war mammoth thundered on. The Hukm had fought Blade Kin for five centuries, and the mammoths knew their enemy, stampeded in a frenzy, trampling Blade Kin, tossing them aside with their great tusks, sometimes grabbing them in their trunks and flipping them back over their shoulders.

Fava could only hold on—not guide the enraged mammoth. When its driver dropped from the saddle on the mammoth’s neck, the mammoth did not even notice, nor did it notice Fava and Darrissea clinging to its back.

Fava saw a rising shadow before her, the isle of Bashevgo. The rumble of the mammoth’s charge was a thunder, and the mammoths trumpeted in the background, and then she heard cannons firing, saw the flash of lasers through the fog. She could not imagine how the Blade Kin hoped to turn back such a charge.

The ice rumbled under the feet of thirty thousand mammoths, and screams of death and trumpeting filled the air, and then a laserbeam cut through the fog ahead.

The ice exploded as it became superheated, and her mammoth dropped, hitting icy water.

Darrissea screamed and for a moment Fava plunged beneath the waves, looking up through a clear dark sea at ice lit dimly from above.

The water took Fava’s breath away, shoved her from the saddle.

She kicked twice, brushed against the mammoth, and wrapped her hands in the long hair at its neck.

Darrissea thrashed, grabbed frantically at Fava’s cloak. She caught a handful of Fava’s hair, ripped it. Fava tried to pull her close.

The mammoth bobbed back above the surface, and all around her the mammoths trumpeted and thrashed in the icy water.

Fava grasped onto the mammoth blindly, Darrissea clinging next to her, splashing toward Bashevgo while her mammoth tried to climb every piece of floating ice.

Often the mammoth fell and water swirled around Fava, buoying her, and she looked up at the great hump on the mammoth’s back, wondered if she could climb where it would be dry and safer.

Darrissea began shouting, holding Fava and shouting, but Fava’s ears had gone numb. Fava looked up and saw the laser flashing, realized that the Blade Kin were carving the ice, sinking both their own men and the Hukm on their war mammoths rather than risk an invasion.

Her mammoth struggled forward, swimming, and the cold water rushing around her, the cold air streaming into her lungs, numbed Fava’s mind until she no longer felt the cold at all, felt only a numbness, a dreamy warmth and the desire to sleep.

Darrissea wrapped her arms around Fava. “Hold on! Hold on!” she said. “We have to get back. You have to find Tull.”

The mammoth struggled on, slowing its movements, and she wondered why. She slept for a moment, then woke to find Darrissea cuddling with her, wrapping her robe around them both.

Moments later, the mammoth seemed to find solid ice, went rushing up a hill and into the countryside. Fava dimly heard screams, the sound of gunfire, saw the wavering light of the moon rising above the fog, and realized that the mammoth was carrying them through the streets, through canyons where fires gleamed.

Darrissea was whispering to her, telling Fava to move.

But she wanted only to sleep, so she unclenched her frozen hands from the mammoth’s hair, pushed herself back … falling, falling, falling between dark canyons, as if they were her mother’s legs and she were a child drifting back into the womb.

***