Remnants: Season of Fire (16 page)

After a few more minutes my armband fairly hummed
with cold warning, telling me that at last I was getting closer. I paused to catch my breath so I might steal up on them. Taking on two Sheolites was infinitely harder than Pacificans, as it seemed their training had been nearly as good as our own.

I heard the sounds of scuffling and stole closer, slowly peeking around the trunk of a broad tree. One of the Sheolites wrenched Tressa up to her feet and shook her, then slapped her across the face. Inwardly, I seethed, but I held back, considering my options. I figured I’d follow along for a bit, and next time Tressa fought or they paused to rest, I’d take down the other man and then turn on the second. I knew that Tressa couldn’t bear to kill another, but in times like this, she’d been known to at least try and waylay our enemy. If she could keep the second man occupied until I was free we’d have a chance. I just prayed we wouldn’t run into any other Sheolites before that was done.

They took off again, mostly lifting Tressa between them. She didn’t help them, despite their threats, and was obviously a dead weight. When the weary men again stopped, and the leader raised a hand to strike her, I charged. I barreled into the first man, ramming him against a boulder and hearing the satisfying crack of breaking bone. He cried out.

I rolled over and off of him and was immediately after the second man, who tried to grab Tressa. She ducked and rolled, evading him by inches, and he turned and pulled out two daggers, awaiting me.

I brought my sword down toward him, but he leaned back and I missed him. As I was coming around, he pounced, plunging a dagger into my shoulder. Thankfully, my leather chest armor — a gift from the Aravanders — deflected his strike. We grappled, fell, rolled, and I lost my grip on my
sword but ended on top of him. I concentrated on holding his other hand, still gripping a dagger, away from my throat as I choked him. I ignored his steady pummeling of my neck, my cheek, recognizing he grew more faint by the moment.

Tressa moved to my sword and lifted it, ready to hand it to me the moment I asked. Finally, the man beneath me passed out. Ten paces away, the other Sheolite was fighting to rise, glaring at me with intense hatred. I rose, took the sword from Tressa, then whirled and cut his head off, so that he might never rise again. Niero had told us — piercing the heart or decapitation was the only way to be assured we wouldn’t fight the same Sheolite again.

The other hobbled toward me, his leg clearly broken, nothing but murderous rage in his eyes. He wielded a sword as large as mine, and we circled, sizing each other up. “Run, Tressa,” I growled over my shoulder, as I came between her and the Sheolite. “Killian has need of your touch.”

I smiled as I heard her turn and do as I’d asked. The man before me scowled, hatred practically seething from his pores. “What is it?” I asked. “Have I interfered with your mission? You shall never succeed in taking a Remnant while a Knight of the Last Order yet lives.”

The man let out a scoffing sound and glanced to where Tressa had disappeared behind me. “We may have lost that one,” he said, spitting blood from his mouth as a slow smile crossed his face. “But the master shall have another this day.”

A chill ran down my neck. Who did he speak of? Surely not —

I charged him, ramming my sword down again and again, but he deflected each blow. If he’d had two good legs, I would’ve had a serious fight on my hands. Unfortunately his defense was formidable.

It took until I was well winded myself, my arm trembling with the effort to raise my sword again, before I was at last able to take his good leg out from under him and then send him from this world.

Panting, I turned to eye the path that would lead me back to Andriana.

It was then that I realized my armband was still ice-cold, even after this last Sheolite had been dispatched. I rubbed it, thinking how it should be getting warmer now, or at least neutral, if our enemies had truly been driven away or killed.

But it was the very semblance of winter about my skin.

CHAPTER
14

ANDRIANA

I
rose slowly and casually swung my sword in a circle before passing it to my other hand for another circle. Sethos eyed me as if I were idle entertainment.

I itched for the chance to take him down. Could I not summon the strength within me for this, the greatest opportunity I’d ever had to free Keallach from whatever evil hold his “guardian” had over him?

And yet as soon as I began pleading with the Maker to steel me for the task, other Sheolites emerged from the trees, surrounding me.

Sethos gave me a thin-lipped smile. “Fight or come peacefully, but you shall accompany me, Andriana.” He bowed his head and steepled his fingers, staring at me. “The emperor demands it.”

I gasped for air as his look seemed to translate into a
physical clamping around my neck.
It’s a trick,
I told myself.
A sorcerer’s trick.

I swallowed hard, planted my sword in the soil at my feet and rested my hands on the hilt of it, then returned his gaze.
Maker, bind your enemy. Banish him from my heart and mind.

Immediately Sethos lifted his head, his lips parting in surprise. He let out a laugh. “Well done, Remnant,” he said, striding toward me slowly, his hands outstretched to show me he was unarmed. But well I knew that his most powerful weapons were not of iron, but of the spirit. He thought himself invincible. That I wouldn’t dare to strike at him while I was surrounded by his men.

It would be folly.

It would be the doorway to my own death.

It would be an honor,
I thought. Without Sethos in the way, poisoning Keallach and many others in Pacifica, what headway could the Remnants make in securing a future freedom and peace?
I was created for this moment
, I told myself, my grip tightening on the hilt of the sword.
I can do this.
Strike down my enemy, endure the onslaught of emotional pain, with such a distinct reward in the end.

He stopped in front of me. “The emperor would like me to bring you back whole, but he said nothing against beating you into submission.”

“I’d like to see you try that,” I said. I visualized myself lifting the sword, the turn of my wrist, the muscles it would take to bring it up and through his neck.

“Brave words for a Remnant without her knight.” He sniffed, looking over to Killian who had faded into unconsciousness. How many minutes did Killian have left? Where was Ronan? And Tressa?

“Remnants trained alongside their knights,” I said. “But then, you know that. Because it was you who saw to it that both Keallach and Kapriel’s knights were pitted against each other, didn’t you? Conveniently removing them both and opening up the path for you to fully infiltrate.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “I know nothing of what you speak,” he said, an obvious lie. It enraged me that he could find amusement in the memory of the day two of my unmet brothers died. With a cry of fury, I lifted my sword and turned to give weight to the momentum of my strike, bringing it toward his neck.

With casual elegance, he reached out and grabbed my arm, staying me.

Without pause, I turned the other way, wrenching my arm free of his grip and coming around — hoping to at least wound him in the torso or leg if I couldn’t kill him.

But he wasn’t where I expected him to be. He moved so swiftly . . . one moment on one side of me, the next, the other. He kicked the back of my thigh, making my leg buckle, then rammed an elbow between my shoulder blades. I went down hard, pain shooting up and over my head and down my spine. I tried to rise, but he put a boot on my back and shoved me to the ground again. “Bring her,” he said to the others. “Leave the knight to die.”

I was up on my feet as soon as he’d taken a step, but the Sheolite guards were too, one taking each arm. I tried to wrench away, but a third faced me and rammed his fist into my belly. I gasped for breath and crumpled, my vision swimming, and felt the men dragging me forward, just as they had done to Tressa . . .

Gradually, my breath returned, and when we entered a
boulder field, I tried to use the varying heights of rocks we were crossing to pull away from the iron grip of my enemies.

“Cease your struggle,” Sethos said, suddenly at my side again and grabbing hold of my hair. He forced me onward, pulling me upward again by the hair when I fell painfully to my knees. At last I saw that we were beside a cliff again. He pressed me forward until the tips of my boots were over the edge, pebbles around them tumbling downward. “Do you really wish to press me?” he hissed.

My heart pounded. “No,” I grit out, giving in. What good would I do the Ailith if I ended up dead?

He turned and fairly tossed me back to the two guards, who were looking both sheepish and furious that I’d made them appear incapable. We took a steep path down toward the river, and soon I could smell the water, we were so close. It made me both desperate for a drink and panicked that we’d reached a boat that might separate me from the rest of the Ailith in swift order. I prayed that Ronan would find us and somehow help me to escape.

I prayed that the Aravanders would rise from the cattails and shoot all the Sheolites dead.

I prayed that Sethos would stumble and fall off the narrow trail, his head cracking upon the rocks beneath us.

But none of that happened.

RONAN

I knew she was gone before I reached the clearing.

And as much as I wanted to go after her, I could not turn away from Tressa and Killian. Tressa reached for me, tears
streaming down her face. “I know where you belong, Ronan,” she pleaded. “But I need you here. I cannot do this alone.”

Stifling a mangled cry that gathered in my throat, I hurried over to them and crouched down by my brother. He looked ghastly. Gray skin, unresponsive. I lifted an eyelid. “Tressa . . .”

“No,” she bit out. “Don’t say it, Ronan.” She caught herself, faltered, swallowed hard and reached for my hand. “Please. I need you with me in this. We’ve seen the Maker’s miracles unfold already. Those with the Cancer in Zanzibar. The goatherd’s foot in the desert. Please . . . He can heal Killian too. Can you . . .” She paused and took a deep breath, as if willing herself to do this task too. “Can you believe with me?”

“I’m with you sister,” I said, covering her hand with my other one. I swallowed my desire to add
Let’s do this fast
. . .

She began praying, closing her eyes. Her hands hovered inches over Killian’s wound as she begged the Maker to create anew what had been unmade. To save our brother. To bind his wound from the inside out. To steady his heart. To give him breath and blood to spare.

Holding on to Killian’s arm, I repeated every word she said in a whisper, and then again, and then again. And as we prayed, my armband began to warm, the dreadful chill at last dispersing. I told myself it wasn’t that I was getting so far behind Dri and the Sheolites who chased her. It was because the Maker was present, doing as we pleaded with him to do, healing our brother. I opened my eyes and stared for several long seconds before I admitted to myself that it was truly happening.

The hair on my head and neck and arms all stood on end. We were not alone. We were in the Presence. Here in this forgotten land, so recently trod by our enemies.

While still praying, Tressa carefully pressed the ragged edges of skin together, her fingers and nails eerily red with her knight’s blood. But my eyes were on the wound itself; just as we’d watched the goatherd’s foot straighten, I saw Killian’s cut begin to seal together from one end to the other. Still red and angry. But
together
, as if knit together by the nimble fingers of unseen angels. Tears welled in my eyes as his skin began to turn from gray to his normal ruddy tone. Then his chest lifted and fell with deep breathing — not the shallow breaths that I’d feared would soon stop forever.

Tressa laughed through her own tears and bowed her head to Killian’s chest, sobbing and thanking the Maker again and again.

I laughed through my tears with her. But then I knew that we weren’t alone.

I wrenched my head left, immediately on my feet, hand on the hilt of my sword. But when I saw who it was, I took a staggering step backward. “Niero! You spooked me, man.”

“Well done, Remnant,” he said, passing me, looking solely at Tressa. He crouched and leaned down, touching Killian’s shoulder. And at that moment, my brother stirred and opened his eyes, looking confused.

“He will be on his feet soon,” Niero said to me. “But now, I have need of you, Knight. Your own has been captured.”

ANDRIANA

Hands bound, the guard behind me prodding me with the tip of his sword, the one in front of me keeping enough distance to avoid any attempt to shove him off the trail, I felt despair swallowing me.

Twenty paces away, Sethos reached the bottom of the trail just as a boat rounded the bend of the river. White steam billowed from a smokestack at its center. And at the rail was Keallach. The engine was idled and the boat slowed moving against the current, it soon came to a standstill. A soldier in gray tossed out a heavy anchor.

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry. Keallach looked pensive. Sethos was coming toward me. I had to make my move.

“Keallach!” I cried, pretending to greet him as my savior. “I’ll come to you!” And then I trudged toward the boat and dived into the water when I was only waist-deep, as if solely intent on reaching him. But instead of rising, I went as deep as I could, kicking hard until I was into the current, riding it downward.

I let out my breath as slowly as I could, realizing it might give away my path, and yet battling to stay deep and not bob to the surface. There had been that patch of reeds along the bank. Could I reach it?

My lungs screamed for air. Ached for it. But with the oxygen gone, I remained down on the muddy bottom. I didn’t have much time left. I’d either pass out and drown or survival instinct would kick in and I’d scramble for the surface. I grabbed hold of one mossy boulder, but couldn’t hold on for long. The next was more ragged, and my legs turned down-current. I let go of it and angled for another, and felt the blessed, welcome, slimy sensation of the first reed. Knowing I only had seconds remaining, I pushed my left leg against a rock, bent my knees, and then propelled myself deeper into the reeds.