Chapter 3
The sun scorched Ilahe’s dark skin, so harsh she thought it would flay her to the bones. Not at all like the rainbow light of the Iris, with its smooth shadows. She wiped sweat from her brow and flicked it onto the loose stones of the rough mountain path. It dried within heartbeats. Stone kept no mark of her passage. That was the only blessing the Danma Mountains offered; perhaps they would keep the priests from tracking her, for a while.
Ahead, the sky was stark blue, as far as the eye could see. No clouds broke it. Nothing but vast, blue emptiness, and the heat of the incredible, foreign sun. How the Khacens stood it, day after day, Ilahe could not understand. Even as that vast expanse of sky promised her refuge from the unsleeping eyes of the Iris, it terrified her, threatening to swallow her whole. She shook her head, checked her swords, and continued down the path.
A breeze caressed her face, cooling the sweat that clung to her skin. Ilahe breathed in, grateful for a break from the heat. She tasted leather and iron on the air, and the shock of the smell, after the dry sterility of the mountain air, brought her back to herself. The swords strapped to her back were within easy reach, but she did not wait for her attackers to show themselves. She had made that mistake once before. It had ended with her almost dying on the solars’ altar.
She drew the blades, and sunlight broke along the pink, shimmering metal, scattering in a rainbow of colors. Salt and moon-blood and steel. The blades could kill man or god—even the gods on this side of the Danma. Killing men was the task at hand, though. She would have to wait to kill a god. It was only a matter of time; it had been promised to her.
With slow steps she made her way down the path, keeping one shoulder pressed to the rock face. It rose a good ten feet above her head; any attack from above would be by bow, and so Ilahe kept close to the stone, to give any hidden ambushers the worst possible shot. The dry grass offered little place to hide, and to her left the path fell away into a scree-covered slope. Sweat made the hilts slick in her hands, and with each step Ilahe cursed herself for having drawn the blades too early. The sound of voices silenced her recriminations, and she crouched low as she came to the next bend of the path.
They spoke the deep, guttural language of the Paths. She knew it, she even spoke it—her mother had seen to that. Ilahe did not like it, though.
“We’ve waited too long,” a man said. “Maq said she would be here days ago. Every day we are here is another day that Ayde is short-handed. If Balat moves against her, or that snake Qatal, she’ll be defenseless.”
Someone spat. “Everyone knows that, Serbe. We’re waiting cause Maq pays well, and he’s got a mind to have some peace and quiet back home. It’s not a problem for you, is it? We’ll just wait out all that nasty business while he cleans house. When we go back, things will be nice and quiet, and we’ll have a dead ‘bow-blood to our credit. Everyone is happy.”
Ilahe’s mind raced. Rainbow-blood. She knew that term. A slang term, derogative for a Cenarbasin. For her people. They were waiting for someone from Cenarbasi. Her?
The first man said, “You bastards. You knew? You knew he was going to move, and you still came? Why didn’t you say something? Ayde pays you well. She’s a lap-esis, Father take you—”
A third man shouted, voice hard with fear, “Watch your tongue, you gloried fool. You’d say his name here, of all places?”
“I’m going back,” Serbe said. “And Ayde will have your heads for this.”
“Thought you might take it that way,” the second man said. “It’s a shame. You’re an alright man, but head stuck in the sand. Why we didn’t tell you in the first place. Take care of him, Tozu.”
They were waiting for her, or someone else from Cenarbasi, and they would kill her when she rounded that corner. That made the decision for her. Ilahe dropped her pack. Without pausing to consider the odds, she sprinted out around the corner, determined to take advantage of their distraction.
Five men stood under a shelf of rock where the trail widened, a rough camp witness to the amount of time they had been there. Another man, his face red, stood partway down the trail. As Ilahe rounded the corner, one of the men under the shelf of rock shifted, and his figure blurred. In the blink of an eye, he stood next to the red-faced man, driving a dagger into his stomach. The red-faced man crumpled to the ground with a cry.
Ilahe swore. She had heard of men like this—men who came close to the power of the Innervated, but without any form of Illumination. Sarkomancers, they were called here. Men who fed on human flesh to gain power. Abominations. Two of the men under the rock shelf saw her and let out shouts, and the other men turned their attention to her.
Five against one. Ilahe grinned, her blood boiling. These men stood between her and killing a god. Maq, whoever he was, should have sent more people.
One pink blade took the closest man in the throat, sliding easily through the flesh, the tug of resistance almost imperceptible on the razor-sharp edge. Ilahe brought up her other sword to deflect a clumsy thrust from a still-sitting man. She twisted on the balls of her feet, knocking his blade aside, and thrust with her other sword. It punched through flesh and heart easily. The man thrashed, blood trickling from his mouth to land on dusty stones. Something blurred on Ilahe’s vision and she turned to face the sarkomancer.
The salt-smith had spoken true; for some reason, salt canceled the strange magic that the Khacens used. The sarkomancer settled back into a normal speed as he drew close to the blade. Shock painted his face. Only instinct saved his life, as he threw himself sideway, under Ilahe’s slash, and rolled toward the edge of the path. Ilahe moved to follow; he was the most dangerous, and she needed to keep him in range of the salt-metal.
The sound of leather on stone made Ilahe throw herself forward, but not fast enough. Pain blazed along her back where the blade caught her. She stumbled away from the weapon, eyes tearing, and turned just in time to parry the thrust that would have finished her off. She had forgotten the remaining two men sitting under the rock shelf, and they faced her now, pressing her toward the edge of the cliff.
One, his hair the color of fire, held a sword dark with blood. Her blood. The other, tall and long-limbed, held a sword several feet longer than Ilahe’s. The tall one struck again, his reach and longer weapon driving her back again as she parried and ducked. As she did, the red-head darted in, his bloodied sword dull in the sunlight. Ilahe stumbled back, but the blade sliced through her thick leather jerkin and left a line of fiery pain along her side. Ilahe growled as they stepped in again, trapping her against the edge of the path. She did not like being trapped.
The tall one swung again, but Ilahe was angry now—trapped and in pain, she lunged toward him, blocking his blade with both of hers, and moving to put the tall man between her and the red-head. The tall man gaped as she ran toward him, and her arms screamed at her as she tried to turn aside the blow meant to take off her head. At the last moment, her arms giving under the force of his blow, Ilahe dropped to her knees and thrust. Her blade took the tall man in the thigh. With a savage twist, she opened the artery near his groin and then got to her feet, letting out another growl as the pain in her back made the world spin around her.
Red-head frowned, his cheeks pale, and moved in again, but Ilahe was ready for him this time. She parried his thrust, and her second sword plunged into his throat. He dropped, gurgling and kicking.
Ilahe glanced around her. The sarkomancer stood a good dozen paces up the path, where she had come. He flexed his hands, glaring at her from underneath a shock of golden hair, and then ran toward her, form shivering as he did. After two paces he disappeared from sight, but the spray of rock chips from the face of the cliff told Ilahe what he was doing.
Somehow, the sarkomancer was running sideways on stone. It made her heart fall into her stomach. Ilahe gripped her swords and waited for him to slow as he got near her.
Rocks hailed down on her, and suddenly the sarkomancer stood behind her, just enough to one side that she
could see him. Ilahe spun, but his fist slammed into her back, right on the open wound. Ilahe staggered and fell to one side, still carried by the force of her turn, black spots dancing in front of her eyes.
Writhing on the dirt, Ilahe made herself hold onto the swords. She would never let them go again. Never. As she tried to regain her feet, she heard the sarkomancer coming toward her. Slow, sure steps. The same black confidence that every blind-fool man had. Ilahe gritted her teeth. By the solars, she hated men.
“You’re pretty enough,” the sarkomancer said. “Even if you do look like you’ve been rolling in the tair’s own rich earth. Do all your people look that way?”
Ilahe did not answer him; she could barely draw breath as it was. She stopped moving, though she still gripped the swords, and watched him walk toward her.
“If Ayde would pay me for your hide, I might keep you alive long enough to take you back to Khi’ilan,” the sarkomancer said. “But Maq pays well enough—”
He cut off as Ilahe rolled to her feet and drove a blade into his gut. The sarkomancer let out a soft gasp, his breath brushing Ilahe’s cheek as she stared into his eyes.
“Blindness take you, man,” Ilahe said. “I had two swords in my hands. Why in the world weren’t you watching?”
The sarkomancer blinked once, as though surprised. Ilahe pulled her blade free and slit his throat as he fell. Stepping around the bodies, she retrieved her pack and continued down the path, her wounds hotter than the strange sun overhead. A few paces down she came across the red-cheeked man who had started the argument. It was strange how red his cheeks could be, considering the blood that pooled around him. Ilahe didn’t know if she’d ever be used to these pale Khacens.
“Please,” the man said in Khacen.
Ilahe started in surprise; she cursed herself for having ignored him the way the sarkomancer had ignored her. I am not a blind man, she thought. Never again.
“Please,” the Khacen said again. “Don’t leave me here.”
“You’re dead,” Ilahe said. “It’s just a matter of time.” She pushed away the thought of the cam-adeh in her bag; she could heal him, but it would leave one less cam-ad for her. Besides, he was a man, and a Khacen at that.
“I know,” he said, with a strange, gurgling laugh. “Just don’t let me die on stone. Take me to soil. Please.”
Ilahe grinned. She had forgotten about the strange Khacen superstitions. With a shake of her head, she moved down the path. As blind a man as there ever was.
“Please,” he screamed with terrible strength. “Don’t let me become a wight.”
Ilahe did not look back. As she walked, she fingered the parchment pressed against the skin under her shirt. She had been hired to kill a god, but it seemed that the god knew she was coming. Her grin broadened. Everything had just become much more interesting.
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