Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (54 page)

“Get some rest, sodalist,” Vendanj said, and closed his eyes as he leaned his head back to rest on the rock against which he sat.

Braethen watched as the Sheason began to pull deep breaths; Vendanj had fallen asleep with a swiftness he’d never seen. It left the sodalist alone with questions. Mostly, why were they seeking a man so reclusive that he lived at the center of the most tortured place outside the Bourne?

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The Tracker

Tahn struggled to free himself, pushing his hands into the soft river bottom, trying to rise up. It was no use. Whatever had him was much too powerful. His lungs started to burn, and he thrashed from side to side, twisting his neck and bucking his feet. The water around his head clouded red, the fingers digging into his skin. Tahn thought fast. He collapsed his arms, hoping to surprise his attacker and win some advantage. His face quickly met the bottom, his nose filling with wet sand.

His chest spasmed, trying to force a breath. Tahn stifled the need, but knew he would soon suck water in and start to drown.

Around his face, the water clouded, obscuring his vision. He reached back desperately, hoping to clasp his assailant’s arm and force a withdrawal, perhaps pull him into the water, as well. He could gain no purchase on anything. The water roiled. Murky light, filtered through the river, bent and shadowed in his eyes. As he twisted, his back struck the being’s legs, and he began trying to kick the man off his feet.

The legs did not give, rooted like iron in the river bottom.

The urge to draw breath became too much, and Tahn heaved a huge rush of cold water through his nose and mouth. The feel of it down his throat came like a dagger, and he immediately began to cough. Panic swelled within him, and he thrashed more violently, trying not to breathe a second time.

Gathering his feet under him, Tahn pushed up with all his strength, and broke the surface. He gasped a breath, and saw a water-blurred image of Sutter rushing to his horse twenty strides away. He heard a sound—half snarl, half chortle—just before the creature gripping his neck thrust him back into the river to drown.

He clawed at the hand around his neck, beating relentlessly at the fingers and wrist. The being’s grip held him fast. Tahn’s lungs began to burn again, and in his eyes he could see red dots flashing. His resistance ebbed, his arms tiring, growing heavy.

Then vaguely, the sound of rapid, harsh splashes echoed under the water like dull thuds. They seemed to grow nearer, deeper, louder.

Just when he thought he must surely take more water into his spasming lungs, the hand pulled away from his neck as if forced, the fingernails tearing away thick strips of his skin.

Tahn shot to the surface, gulping air in a loud, hoarse rush. He retched and fell back down, coughing and choking, the feeling of water in his gullet still convincing him he would drown.

Casting his gaze around, Tahn saw a darkly clad figure regaining its balance, and Sutter thrown aside in the shallow water. He realized the splashes he’d heard were Sutter’s running steps as his friend had thrown himself at Tahn’s attacker and by sheer force ripped its hold away. The figure lashed at Sutter, who stumbled out of the way and fell back into the river. Wasting no time on Nails, the creature wheeled about, fixing its eyes on Tahn. Instantly, he recognized the tracker from their encounter north of Myrr. Its pale skin glistened with water beneath a drenched cloak that clung to its emaciated frame.

“Patience, child,” the creature admonished. “I’ve no intention of killing you. Just breaking your spirit before taking you back.”

Tahn scrambled backward through the water like a river crab, trying to regain his feet and reach his bow. He stole a look over his shoulder at the horses, which had retreated some distance away and milled nervously near the trees.

The tracker came on, its feet gliding through the water but never breaking the surface.

A snarling smile spread on its face as it fast closed the distance between them. The grin drew rough, unnatural lines in the tight, thin skin, which threatened to split over the tracker’s sharp, angular features. It came on, hunched, bent as though stooped forever to the ground to track the passage of its quarry. Its fingers coursed across the river’s surface, likewise making no mark.

Tahn tried to stand, but his wet cloak caught beneath his foot and tripped him back into the shallow water. He flipped over to meet the attacker face on. The tracker rushed him.

Tahn heard the keening of a blade drawn from its sheath; the fast arc of that blade pierced the dusk.

As Tahn watched, Sutter’s greatsword lodged itself in the right shoulder of the tracker, causing a terrible grimace of anger and hatred before a great howl roared from its throat, echoing down the river like a loon’s call. The Given swung around to deal with Sutter, giving Tahn time to gain his feet and sprint to Jole. Pain shot through his foot with each running stride, but he forced himself to ignore it and move faster.

Reaching his horse, he pulled his bow and wheeled about, nocking an arrow as he rounded.

His back rashed with chills to see the tracker almost upon him. Sutter knelt at the riverside, blood on his hands, staring helplessly toward Tahn. The Given rushed toward him, cold finality in every step. Tahn lifted quickly, the words racing through his mind:
I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will allows
. Then one arrow, a second, and a third whistled from his string, biting the tracker in the chest one after the other.

A primal scream split the air, waves welling in the river, leaves quaking on their branches.

The tracker slowed, but still came on. Tahn backpedaled, fumbling for more arrows as he retreated. The sound of heavy footfalls came across the riverbank. Knowing eyes rolled in the tracker’s head and it shuffled to meet Sutter’s charge. Sutter skidded to a stop, using his momentum to swing his sword with reckless abandon. The sound of steel biting the air menaced even Tahn, but the tracker evaded the blow and shot one long arm at Sutter, taking his neck in its powerful grasp. He dropped his blade, using both hands to try and loosen the tracker’s grip. His face reddened, and veins in his neck and forehead welled with blood. The Given lifted Sutter from the ground. A terrible stream of clucks and choked words fell from his lips.

Sutter’s legs flailed, trying to kick the Given, but he only feebly hit the thin body within the wet folds of the dark cloak. His mouth gaped open, trying to draw air; Tahn feared the tracker would, at any moment, simply crush Sutter’s neck. Blood welled onto his lips and began dripping from his nose.

At last, Tahn fingered some arrows. Already speaking his cant as he nocked them, Tahn let three more arrows fly into the tracker’s humped back. The creature immediately reared, releasing Sutter, who fell to the ground clutching his throat.

The wizened visage turned on Tahn, bloodied lips rasping curses Tahn did not understand:
“Je’malta yed solet, Stille. Sine ti stondis roche.”
It crumpled to the ground at Tahn’s feet, one withered hand creeping forward toward his boot. Then it ceased to move altogether.

Giving the tracker a wide berth, Tahn rushed to Sutter’s side. His friend sat huddled, wheezing, his hands working ineffectually at his throat. Lifting his wet cloak, Tahn wiped Sutter’s face and helped him lie back on the ground.

“Slowly, breathe slowly,” he instructed.

Sutter shook his head, gulping air. His neck was already purpling from the attack, dark blood suffusing the skin. Tahn began taking exaggerated breaths in a slow, steady rhythm to help Sutter regulate himself. After several moments, they both calmed, lying wet and bloodied in the shade of a river tree just strides from the dead tracker.

When the pounding of their hearts subsided beneath the sound of the river, Tahn looked at his friend, whose eyes seemed lost in the nearness of his own death. “Would it be too much to ask you to find that balsam root now? I’m kind of sore.”

Sutter rolled his head over to look at his friend. “Foot still bothering you, is it?” Neither laughed. “That creature wasn’t interested in me, Tahn.”

“Not until you picked up that sword of yours.” Tahn spoke in a grateful tone.

Sutter shook his head. “Even after I knocked it off you, it just turned back.” His eyes darkened momentarily. “What does the Bourne want with you?”

Patience, child, I’ve no intention of killing you. Just breaking your spirit before taking you back.

Suddenly, Tahn realized what peril his friends had placed themselves in, but he still had no answer for Sutter’s question. They were all Sheason secrets. But the tracker’s words took root in his heart like a weed nourished on doubt and fear and nightmare.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered. “Maybe we’ll find out at Recityv.”

Sutter studied Tahn’s face for several moments, his eyes moving over every feature as if he’d never seen Tahn before. Then he propped himself up, grimacing with the effort. “We’d better get moving. Where there’s one, there may be more. I can’t promise to save you more than once a day.”

While his friend looked for more balsam, Tahn filled the waterskins and gathered the horses. Sutter quickly mashed his harvested roots into a paste, which he and Tahn spread liberally over their abrasions and cuts, wrapping them with strips of cloth. They grinned at the similarity they bore to each other with their necks thickly swaddled. Sutter applied poultices to cuts across both of his forearms. Tahn took some of the paste under his tongue, sucking the bittersweet juice to ease the throbbing in his foot.

Before setting out, they dragged the tracker to the river and cast it facedown in the shallows. Tahn fell to his knees beside the body, the panicked feeling of not being able to breathe still aching in his chest. He dropped his bow and looked toward Sutter, who stood over the Given, a grimace twisting his lips.

In sudden anger, Sutter raised his sword and brought it down on the lifeless form with a mindless scream. Bloodied water erupted from the blow as the body bobbed from the attack, sending ripples outward. Then Sutter fell to his knees as well. Water splashed up on his pale face; a mixture of shock and fear tensed his features.

“It’s dead,” he proclaimed in a loud voice. “It’s dead.” The second time he whispered.

Sutter was in shock. Tahn didn’t think there was a root his friend could dig for that. This whole business was mad.

Then Sutter pushed the shape from the shallows into the deeper water, where the current began to pull it downriver. Tahn watched as the tracker floated away into the scarlet-tinged water of sunset. Soon, the lump might have been nothing more than a fallen log pulled from the shore during a heavy rain. After another moment, the body was gone, swept south and away.

“I didn’t hear it coming,” Tahn said.

Sutter continued to watch the river where the figure had disappeared. He shook his head. “It didn’t make a sound. Even in the river its steps were silent.” His hands and arms shook, trembling from cold and fright and weariness, the blade in his hands dangling in the water. “We were lucky. I’ve never come so close to my earth.”

Tahn followed his gaze. “Part lucky, part brave.”

Sutter shook his head again. “Instinct. Survival.”

“That, too,” Tahn admitted. “But we got the best of it the way we always beat Maxon Drell or Fig Sholeer: One fighter can’t concentrate on two men.”

“Yeah, but you were under a long time. I thought you drowned for sure.”

“Me?” Tahn said with mock confidence. “I was just letting you test that sword of yours.”

Sutter turned back to Tahn, and the two shared nervous laughter in the waning light of day.

When quiet returned, Sutter looked Tahn in the eye. “You know what I thought about?”

Tahn didn’t understand the question.

“When I thought it might kill us. When I thought this was truly the end.” A pained look drew Sutter’s eyes and mouth taut. “I thought of that root farm. I thought of Father and Mother, and that they must think they failed somehow in making me feel loved. And when I thought it, part of me wanted to kill that thing so I could go back and tell them the truth.” He stopped, swallowing back emotion. “But part of me wondered if dying today…”

Tahn looked out at the river, letting the admission pass without comment or judgment.

But his friend had struck a chord. “You know what
I
thought about?”

Sutter wiped moist eyes and shook his head.

“I thought about my parents’ funerals. The sound of the earth covering them over one shovel at a time. I also thought of Wendra, and how I wasn’t there to protect her when she was raped.” Tahn shook his head in gentle self-reproof. “But then I saw her happiness at the coming of her child. She’s all the family I have left, and it was good to hear her sing again.” Emotion thickened in his own throat. “Then I thought about the loss of her baby.”

And Tahn finally shared a secret of his own, the very old compulsion to utter those words before he could release a single arrow. He shared how it had kept him from his own sister’s defense in her time of greatest need. And when he was done, he hung his head and wept. Because now she was lost to him in a world preyed upon by Quiet, and she was too far away, Skies knew where, for him to make it right. His own fears and needs had taken him away from her when she needed him most, again.