Leaves of Flame (41 page)

Eraeth grunted. Colin caught him loosening the clasp on his cattan as they reached the base of the wall of stone, the loose rubble giving way to layered shelves of sandstone and basalt. They began climbing the layers like steps, moving diagonally toward the hole in the wall. To the west, the sun had dipped nearly to a horizon dotted with more rock formations. Colin passed into the shadow cast by the wall, the ridge of rock striking almost due west. He paused to wipe sweat from his brow in the cooler shade, then pulled himself up the last leg of stone into the lip of the hole.

Then he froze and ducked back down behind the stone, even though he stood in shadow.

“What is it?” Eraeth hissed, scrambling up the last leg and settling down beside him.

“The Wraith army,” Colin whispered, his voice grim.

He waved a hand toward the wide stretch of sand and stone spread out before them, even though Eraeth had already pulled himself up high enough that he could see. The Wraith army stretched from beneath the mesa across the plateau, a black stain on the reddish sand and stone. It was too distant to pick out many details, but it had obviously halted for the night, fires already blazing across its breadth, smoke trailing into the sky. It appeared to eddy and flow as groups moved back and forth, punctuated by gray as tents were raised and horses and gaezels were herded and penned for the night. A line of supply wagons trailed behind the main force, and Colin could see others trundling across the scrubland to the east, coming to join them. At least a score of the strange black birds they had sighted earlier circled above,wheeling through the layers of smoke.A few shrieks pierced the dusk’s quiet, along with an occasional bellow or cry. The army was too distant for general sounds to carry.

“What do you see?” Colin asked after giving Eraeth a long moment to look.

Eraeth’s jaw clenched and he didn’t answer immediately. Then:“You aren’t going to like this,”he muttered,but didn’t wait for Colin to press him. “The army appears to be split into groups. I see at least three, although those in the middle seem to be mixed. I can’t tell who’s in the far group—they’re too far away—but the middle group has creatures I’ve never seen before in it. The group closest to us,” he hesitated and caught Colin’s gaze, “is Alvritshai.”

Colin felt the shock course through him, then harden into anger. “How is that possible? What House do they come from? Who sent them?”

“I can’t tell from here. But they can’t be from any of the Houses of the Evant. How would they have gotten here? A betrayal of the Evant of this magnitude would not have gone unnoticed over the winter months!”

“What about the Houses to the east? Licaeta and Uslaen? They border the Ostraell and the eastern Hauttaeren. They could have sent their Phalanx to the east along the mountains over the winter.”

“Across the northern dwarren lands as well? Without them noticing?” Eraeth shook his head. “The dwarren would not have missed an Alvritshai army of that size, and they would have sent a protest to Caercaern immediately.”

Colin drew breath to argue, but realized that Eraeth was right. An army, even a small group of Alvritshai, would never have gotten past the dwarren’s attention. They patrolled their lands too well. And no one could have gotten that far east by passing north of the Hauttaeren; the glacial plateau butted up against the mountains in that area. He couldn’t imagine the Alvritshai army marching across the ice, then crossing the mountains east of dwarren lands.

He stared down at the Flat, the sun sinking fast, shadows filling the dips and depressions in the land as more fi res were lit in the encampment.

“How many do you think there are down there?” he asked, thinking of the dwarren that were coming to meet them.

“At least seven thousand altogether. Somewhere between one and two thousand are Alvritshai.”

“The dwarren outnumber them.”

“The dwarren have to,” Eraeth said, no derision in his voice. “They are shorter. Their strength lies in their numbers and their ferocity. Based on their size, I’d guess these . . .” he waved a hand toward the army that was fading from view as night fell “. . .
things
rely more on brute force. And then there are the sukrael and the Wraiths, which the dwarren have no defense against. I’d say that the two forces are evenly matched.”

“The dwarren have more of a defense than you think. Remember, they have sought out the heart of the Ostraell and received the forest’s gifts.”

Eraeth frowned, and Colin saw his hand clench, as if he’d realized he’d left the bow he’d been given back at the pool.

Colin shifted away from the Flat as the last of the sun’s rays faded to the west.There was nothing to see now except a black landscape dotted with hundreds of campfires. The night was already turning chill, stars overhead, moonlight faint, barely enough to help him pick his way down from the wall of rock. He heard Eraeth descending from their vantage a moment later, small rocks and pebbles clattering down the slope ahead of him.

He reached the edge where stone gave way to sand and scrub, Eraeth a step behind him. He’d just drawn breath to tell him he was going to check out the encampment when something reared up out of the shadows before him with a hideous hiss, stone and sand scattering from the figure. Colin caught a scent of bitter spice, saw moonlight touch a curved blade as it rose above his head—

And then Eraeth shoved him aside, cattan out, slicing up under the figure’s guard and into his side. He heard Eraeth grunt with effort, dodging back as the fi gure’s blade fell, then the Protector darted forward again, cattan striking and penetrating the figure’s chest. He caught the man as he fell, settling the body to the ground before Colin had even thought to exhale.

Stones rattled in the darkness beyond. “There are two more of them,” Eraeth barked.

Colin reacted without thought, his surprised paralysis broken. Reaching for the knife tucked into his belt, he slowed time, moving toward the area where he’d heard the stones rattle. When the figure emerged from the darkness, shrouded in a cloak, he loosened time enough to plunge his knife into the figure’s back—once, twice, feeling something odd through the knife, the skin unnaturally tough—then slowed time again before the figure had begun to fall, before he could even gasp, spinning toward the second cascade of rocks.The second man was crouched low,his sword curved in an S shape, thicker at the end than near the pommel, held out to the side for balance as he skidded down the slope. Caught in mid-move, Colin slid up behind him, opposite the strange blade, and stabbed him in the throat at the same time as he released time once more. He reached around and grabbed the man’s chest over one shoulder to hold him steady as blood gushed over his fingers, the momentum of the man’s skid dragging Colin along with him. He cursed as he lost his footing and the two slid down the small incline. To one side, he heard a hissing gasp from the first figure he’d killed, caught sight of the figure slumping forward face-first to the ground and rolling once before coming to a rest.

Heart pounding, breath coming hard and fast, his chest aching, Colin jerked his knife free of the man’s throat. Adrenaline made his arms shake as he backed away from the body. He’d killed in the past, forced to by the Wraiths and their actions, but he had almost always killed the Shadows, rarely anyone else.

The stickiness of the blood on his hands sent a shudder through his body.

Footsteps crunched as Eraeth darted toward the first slumped figure, then the second, checking for a pulse.

“Both men should be dead,” Colin said, swallowing. His voice was rough and shaky.

Eraeth looked up from the last body.“They are.But they aren’t human.”

Colin’s breath caught in his throat. Then he jerked forward, coming to Eraeth’s side next to the figure. “What do you mean they aren’t human? Are they Alvritshai? They aren’t tall enough to be Alvritshai.”

“They aren’t either,” Eraeth said roughly. “Look.”

He flicked the hood of the cloak aside.

Colin recoiled instinctively at the face beneath.The skin was scaled like a snake, with mottled colorations whose true colors were impossible to determine under the washed-out light of the moon. He reached forward and touched it, smoother than he’d expected. But the skin was the least of the strangeness. The features were snakelike as well, the neck—thicker than a human’s—emerging from the shirt and cloak and widening into the rounded head and snout of a snake, the nostrils slits along each side, the mouth open slightly, fl eshy fangs barely visible. The eyes were large, yellow-orange with black pupils, set on either side of the head beneath bony ridges. Blood seeped out of the cut Colin had made in its neck and from the corner of its mouth.

After his initial shock, Colin leaned forward with interest, turning the head to either side as the bitter spice scent struck him again. Folds of skin were drawn inward on either side of the neck, but he couldn’t see the creature’s tongue. Not without putting his hand inside its mouth to pry it open. He didn’t trust the liquid glistening on the exposed fangs enough to try.

He turned his attention to the rest of the creature’s body. Eraeth sat back silently as he exposed the hands, scaled like the rest of the body, although with only four fingers, some webbing between them near their base. Each finger ended in a small, pointed talon. Colin pried the strange sword from the creature and handed it off to Eraeth.

“What are they?” Eraeth asked, taking the blade and hefting it, feeling its weight. He swung it sharply a few times, nodding to himself.

“The Scripts refer to them as the Haessari,” Colin said, sitting back. “The oldest Scripts. The dwarren call them the orannian, the Snake People. I didn’t realize that they still existed. They haven’t been seen by the Alvritshai or the dwarren in generations.”

“These Haessari must be the third force in the Wraith army, the one I couldn’t identify.” Eraeth pointed toward the creature with the blade. “This would explain how the Wraiths managed to create an army. They had the help of the Haessari, along with whoever these Alvritshai are, plus those other creatures like the sukrael.”

Colin frowned and met Eraeth’s eyes. “I need to see the army up close. We need to know who has betrayed the Evant, and I need to see exactly what creatures the Wraiths have managed to bring to their side.”

Something flickered in Eraeth’s gaze, but he finally nodded.“Be careful.There are likely Wraiths and sukrael down there.”

Colin heard what Eraeth truly meant. Even with time slowed, the Wraiths and the Shadows could find and attack him if they sensed him near. Their presence on the plateau may have been what had made him uneasy earlier.

He stood and stepped away, the world going still around him as he headed toward the army encampment. As he moved, he thought about all of the creatures the Scripts had described, all of those that the dwarren had insisted were part of the Turning, that would make their presence known in the world again. The orannian, kell, urannen, terren, others—all at one point were part of the dwarren Turnings in the past. He already knew the urannen—the Shadows— were part of the army, and now they had the orannian. How many of the others had the Wraiths found? How many of the others still existed?

And where were they coming from?

Except he already knew. The three races had only explored part of the continent they called Wrath Suvane. The humans were still exploring the lands to the south, had barely settled Borangst and Yhnar at their farthest edges. And the Thalloran Wastelands had impeded settlement to the east. Common sense told him that the Haessari likely came from the desert, with their snakelike skin. And what lay beyond the Wastelands? Men had risked the desert to find out; none had returned.

With the planting of the Seasonal Trees, the Wraiths and Shadows had been forced into the desert and the northern and southern reaches.They’d been driven there.And they’d had over a hundred years to find and coerce or force the creatures they found to their own ends.

All except for the Alvritshai. How had they come to be part of the Wraith army?

Colin’s intense frown darkened as he reached the flat and neared the outskirts of the encampment. He halted as a figure appeared among the scrub of the rocky flat, huddled down to make a smaller target, cloak and hood drawn up over his shape to give the impression of a boulder. Moving closer, he realized it was another of the Haessari, its beady eyes staring out into the nightscape. Colin suddenly wondered if they’d been chosen as guards because they could see in the dark. He didn’t recall reading anything in the Scripts about that ability. He shrugged, unwilling to test the theory,and pushed on.Within a hundred paces,he came upon the edge of the Alvritshai camp. He moved swiftly among the men and women, noting their clothing, their tents, the armbands that a few of them wore and the emblems on necklaces and bracelets, trying to determine their House affiliation. He saw numerous pendants of white gold in the shape of flames and other images of Aielan. Many of the armbands had an eagle’s talon etched into the metal, more such markings on tent flaps and the few banners he saw. But none of the current Houses of the Evant used the talon—

He halted abruptly in the vivid orange light of a fire, surrounded by ten of the Alvritshai.

None of the
current
Houses.

He scanned those seated around the fire, caught in mid-motion as they gambled, most laughing, one scowling at the outcome of the dice he’d just rolled, another clapping him on his back in commiseration.They all wore black and gold, the colors of House Duvoraen.

Khalaek’s House.

It was as if someone had plunged a knife down deep inside Colin’s chest. He staggered beneath the blow, felt his grip on time slip, the crackle of the fi re and the raucous laughter of the group of Alvritshai bursting through his control. Even as he seized time again, sweat breaking out on his skin, he noted one of the Alvritshai’s gazes flick toward him, a frown beginning to touch his face.

At the same time, he heard Vaeren’s voice from months before, beneath the Hauttaeren Mountains, before they’d climbed to the pass and Gaurraenan’s halls:
I’d been part of Duvoraen for decades, had been raised to serve Lord Khalaek, been trained to protect him, to revere the black-andgold uniform, to live under the Eagle’s Talon. I couldn’t shrug the Duvoraen House mantle aside so easily. I couldn’t simply vow to serve Uslaen after all that I’d done, after spilling my blood for Duvoraen on the battlefield.