Wrath of Lions (77 page)

Turock stared at him, but at last there was a hint of comprehension in his eyes.

“What?” he asked.

“You wanted me to tell you if he spoke a lie or not. He is speaking the truth now. Allow me to question him.”

Turock rolled his eyes. “Fine. You think you can get more of a response than me, then be my guest.”

Ahaesarus approached the prisoner. “What is your name?” he asked “What is your purpose?”

The man closed his lips and shook his head.

Ahaesarus sighed and leaned in close, whispering in his ear.

“I can end this quickly if you cooperate,” he said. “There will be no more torment. Your death will be painless.”

The prisoner’s eyes lifted to him, and for the first time there was no hardness in them.

“My living torment might cease,” he said, “but my soul will burn in the abyss for all eternity should I betray him. My god is noble and mighty. All I have, all I have become, I owe to the one who created me. I would rather hurl myself into the flames than turn on Karak.”

“You want to burn?” Turock asked, stepping closer, fire on his fingertips, Ahaesarus struck him with the back of his hand. The
spellcaster stumbled away, holding the side of his face and cursing. The Warden picked up the sword he had laid on the ground, grabbed Turock by the loose collar of his cloak, and pressed the tip of the blade to his throat. The spellcaster’s eyes grew wide.

“No more,” growled Ahaesarus. His menacing tone scared even himself. “This ends now. Leave this tower. Leave the prisoner to me. If he cooperates, you will know all you wish to know. If he does not, he will not see the sunrise. Am I understood?”

Turock nodded, though his entire body looked ready to explode.

“Good,” Ahaesarus said. “Now leave.”

He spun the dazed, red-haired man around and guided him to the door. Opening it, he pushed Turock out to where his son-in-law Uulon stood guard, blond hair matted and eyelids at half-mast. The young man was shocked to attention by their sudden appearance. Ahaesarus gave Turock a shove and shut the door quickly behind him. With that done he leaned against the wood, breathing heavily. What he’d done was rash, dangerous. Turock had proven himself to be powerful in the ways of magic. Had he not been taken off guard by Ahaesarus’s sudden aggression, the Warden might have found himself set ablaze, transformed into a mudskipper, or worse. Breathing out a sigh, he barred the door and returned to the prisoner, who stared at him, an odd look of gratitude on his battle-scarred face. With a twinge of sadness, the Warden remembered something Eveningstar had told him one evening, after Ahaesarus had expressed frustration about his progress with Geris. The boy had been drifting in his studies, but each time Ahaesarus lashed out at him, the child would draw inward and stop speaking.

“Sometimes saying nothing is better than saying the wrong thing,” the great betrayer of Ashhur had said. “There is only so much silence a man can take.”

It was time to put those words into practice.

Ahaesarus pulled up a chair and sat across from the bound man. He asked no questions and expected no answers. All he did was sit,
his gaze never leaving the prisoner’s face. For a while the man was admirable in his fortitude, standing tall in his restraints, his blood-splattered chin held high. But after what felt like an eternity, when the sounds of the first stirrings in camp came seeping through the thick walls, he began to crack.

“Wallace,” he muttered, his voice raspy.

“Say again?”

“Wallace. My name is Wallace.”

“Thank you, Wallace.” He stood, retrieved a pitcher of water from the table in the corner, and poured liquid over Wallace’s parched lips.

There was silence again for a few moments, until Wallace, some of his many wounds still seeping blood, sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

“Karak forgive me,” he said.

“For what?” asked Ahaesarus.

He took a deep breath.

“I will give you two questions. You are a Warden, so you will know that what I say is truthful. After that I will say nothing more, and I ask that you end my life quickly. I do not wish to endure more of the angry man in the funny cloak.”

“Very well,” Ahaesarus said, inclining his head. The aura seeping out of this Wallace told him he was a man of his word. No matter what he or Turock did to him after those two questions were asked, they would get no more answers. The amount of discipline he showed was breathtaking.
If this is the type of dedication Ashhur must face…

He retook his chair and threw one leg over the other, his mind racing. Wallace leaned his head back against the post, closed his eyes, and waited.

Settling on his first question, Ahaesarus asked, “How long have you been in the northern deadlands?”

“Too long,” the prisoner replied. His eyes opened sleepily. “Though in truth, it must be eighteen months, give or take. I was
the trusted council of Uther Crestwell, whose authority I supplanted after his death.”

It was the truth. Ahaesarus almost asked how many were in his force, which should have been the first question, but he snapped his mouth shut. Wallace was laying a trap for him, one he could ill afford to fall into.
Two questions.
He cursed his stupidity.

He nodded instead.

“Anything else?” asked Wallace again.

“One moment.”

He mulled it over, trying to craft the one question that would give him the most information. There was simply too much he needed to know. He could ask for Karak’s plan, but Wallace was an underling, a man in command of a force stationed far from those assaulting from the east. It was unlikely he would know anything but his own group’s role. Ahaesarus closed his eyes and prayed to the god who had saved him, asking for guidance. The right question came to him almost at once, and his eyes sprang open.

“How will you rejoin Karak?” he asked.

Wallace sighed, a tired smile coming across his dry lips.

“We won’t,” he said. “My duty ends here, on the banks of the Gihon.”

Again, it was the truth. Ahaesarus gaped at him. “What does that mean?”

“Two questions, no more. You have your answers. Now fulfill your promise.”

Ahaesarus stood once more, his thoughts whirling in his skull. He hovered in the empty space between the prisoner and the door, unsure of what to do. Had he doomed those he had been sent here to protect? He buried his face in his hands, praying again for guidance.

“Your promise, Warden,” said Wallace.

Ahaesarus ignored him. “Please, Ashhur, I am your humble servant. Give me your wisdom.”

He took a deep breath, leaned his head back, and stared at the ceiling. He felt a presence then, as if another entity were looking through his eyes and weighing his options, with him. As the presence retreated, a vision entered his mind, and a hornlike bleating sounded, so deep and loud that it shook the stone walls surrounding them. He looked over at Wallace, whose eyes were wide with bewilderment.

“What was that?” the prisoner asked.

A second, then a third, then a fourth bleat joined the first, until the air was rocked by a relentless concussive assault. The barred door shook on its hinges, and voices shouted from outside, demanding entry. The Master Warden heard a voice in his ear, a command to travel south, and his body flooded with relief.

“What
was that
?” repeated Wallace, sounding desperate.

Ahaesarus offered a prayer of thanks to his distant god, then turned to the prisoner.

“No questions,” he said. “Your reward is waiting.”

He placed his huge hands on either side of Wallace’s head and jerked it violently to the side. The man’s neck snapped, severing his spinal column. His eyes bulged from their sockets, his final breaths bursting forth raggedly. Ahaesarus released him, let his head dangle on his fractured neck as bloody spittle dripped from his mouth. He felt sick at the sight of the body, the very first life ended by his hands, but he did his best to shove aside his feelings of guilt.
Ashhur forgive me for this horror.
He rushed to the door, threw aside the bar, and opened it to find Turock, Uulon, Judah, and Grendel standing there panting. Meanwhile, the bellowing hornlike sounds continued to blare.

Turock was enraged when he spotted Wallace’s dangling corpse.

“You killed our prisoner!” he shouted.

Ahaesarus shoved him aside.

“I gave him mercy,” he answered, approaching his two fellow Wardens. “And he told us all we needed to know.”

“And the sound?” asked Judah. “What is it?”

“The battle cry of the grayhorns,” Ahaesarus said with a nod, thinking of what Ashhur had shown him in his vision. “Grendel, get the others. We are leaving this place.”

“You can’t do that!” protested Turock, following on their heels as they strode down the corridor.

“You told me you wished for me to leave.”

“I changed my mind!”

Ahaesarus didn’t answer him. They walked out of the tower and into a morning that was nearly blinding in its brightness. The people of the camp all seemed to be awake, glancing around in confusion as the grayhorns’ bleating continued to sound. Only after Grendel ran off to gather up the other Wardens did Ahaesarus turn to face the spellcaster. He continued to follow the path alongside the mountain as he looked at Turock, heading toward the rise that hid the camp from view. The greyhorns were much louder here, almost swallowing all other sounds.

“We are done here,” he said. “Our duty lies to the south, in Mordeina. That is where we are needed most, as are your spellcasters.”

Turock shook his head.

“But what of those across the river? What happens when they attack? You came here to assist us! Are you saying you wish us to abandon our
homes
?”

“I came to assist Ashhur,” he shot back. “To protect Paradise from destruction.” He waved his arm back toward the river. “This is merely a diversion. The force gathered in the Tinderlands is a distraction, nothing more. Karak or Jacob or
someone
decided the best way to weaken Ashhur’s defenses was to thin out his resources.” He looked down at the strange man, whose bloodstained robe billowed around him as he struggled to match the Warden’s much longer strides. “They consider those you have trained to be the biggest threat to their victory, so they will continue to torment you and keep you guessing. Those across the river are willing to give their
own lives to keep you out of the way. They know they cannot win against those you have trained, but they do not care.”

The man grabbed his arm, halting him in place. “Wait. Are you saying…?”

“Yes. It is a ruse, Turock. A grand ruse to keep you and your students out of the way. You have been played on all sides.”

“The prisoner told you this?”

Ahaesarus smiled. “He did not need to.”

He scaled the hill before them and gazed out across the grayhorns’ grazing fields. Turock seemed calmer now, displaying a dutiful sort of pride.
It takes acknowledgment of your talents for you to listen?
Ahaesarus felt pity for the man.

“Your home will not go undefended,” the Warden said. “You will stay behind with half your apprentices and whatever townsfolk choose not to leave. The others will join me and my fellow Wardens…and
them
…on the trek to Mordeina.”

Turock’s gaze shifted to the field.

“Oh my,” he said, jaw slack. “Where are they going?”

Ahaesarus watched the massive wrinkled hides of more than a thousand grayhorns as they marched south, disappearing into the distance, their bleating fading away.

“They are going to the same place as us,” he said. “The capital of Paradise. Ashhur is forming his army.”

C
HAPTER

42

T
he dungeons below Palace Thyne used to be the only place in Dezerea devoid of color. When Ceredon joined forces with Kindren Thyne to free Aullienna Meln and her people, there had been nothing down there but walls of lime rock and granite and thick steel bars. It had been drab and lonely, a truly hopeless setting for those without hope.

That had changed, for now the dungeons were speckled everywhere with shades of red.

A despondent Lord Orden had once told him the dungeons had not been used since the emerald city’s creation nearly a century before. All that had changed when the Quellan arrived and conquered their cousins. Afterward, not a day passed when Ceredon didn’t see a member of the Ekreissar march a beaten and bloodied Dezren down the stairwell behind the palace. As he looked around now, locked in the very cell that had once held Aully, he saw evidence of what had happened to those poor souls. Their bones were stacked up in the nearby cells, ribcages on pelvic bones, on femurs, on skulls, large and small, adult and child. The walls were painted with their dried blood, a sickening brown
and black, while patches of writhing white marked where thick chunks of flesh and innards had been cast aside. Flies buzzed around it all.

It was the most awful thing Ceredon had ever experienced, the macabre answer to his questions about what Clovis Crestwell did during his long hours locked away in the dungeon.

Ceredon was weak and starving, forced to sleep in the lone corner of the cell he had managed to clear of elven remains. Time dragged on, day and night indistinguishable, while he stared with ever-growing acceptance at the ruin that surrounded him. The torches on the corridor’s rough granite walls always burned brightly despite the fact none came to change them.

Even though his situation was hopeless, Ceredon did not give up, did not give in. He was the prince of the Quellan, the future Neyvar of his people. He would be strong for them. He had no choice. At least that was what he told himself.

His stomach rumbled, and he reclined in his corner and closed his eyes.
At least the smell doesn’t bother me anymore,
he thought. The rancid stench of decay had made his head spin at first. Now that sensation had passed, the reek becoming as normal to him as the scent of the flowering dogwoods that lingered in the air from spring until fall in Quellassar.

Thoughts of home brought back his concerns for his father. When he had first awoken in this terrible place, he’d expected the Neyvar to free him at any moment. In between bouts of nausea he would sit idly, hands wrapped around his knees, and watch the distant door to the outside world. But that door never opened. His conscience constantly chided him:
He is ashamed of my failure and has disowned his only son.
There were many moments in which Ceredon, who had never so much as shed a tear for as long as he could remember, felt close to crying.