Ba’Sel raised his torch, showing an arched doorway at one end of the chamber, and beyond a near vertical set of steps leading down. At the top of the stairs a bronze disk splotched with green corrosion hung by a length of rope attached to an iron ring set in the ceiling. Ba’Sel rapped the disk twice in rapid succession with the hilt of his dagger. The resonant notes filled the chamber and echoed away.
“This will let my brothers know one of their own has returned.” When the disk fell silent, he struck it three more times. “That,” he said, “will tell them death follows close at my heels.”
Leitos cringed. “Won’t that lead the Alon’mahk’lar and the wolves to us?”
“If they are through the first barrier, they will hear the gong as easily as my brothers,” Ba’Sel said. “But beyond this grotto, the alarm sounds as if it is coming from all directions, making it hard to pinpoint. My brothers standing watch up ahead will hear it and repeat the message. Farther along, other guards will do the same, until the Sanctuary is alerted to the coming danger.”
Ba’Sel led them down the steep steps. Leitos abandoned counting the stairs after he passed three hundred. Soon after, his weary legs buckled and he stumbled into Ba’Sel. The warrior’s quick grab pulled him back from falling into the well of darkness that waited on their left side.
“Unless you can fly,” Ba’Sel said, firmly placing him nearer to the wall, “you may not want to go that way.”
Leitos swallowed. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply until the quivering in his legs subsided.
“Can you continue?” Ba’Sel asked patiently.
Leitos nodded, hoping they were almost to the Sanctuary.
Not long after they escaped the stairs, another passage brought them within sight of a torch thrust into a hole in the wall. A figure waited in shadow.
“Ulmek?” Ba’Sel called.
“It is I, brother,” the man said, coming fully into the light. He wore robes sewn from mismatched rags. When they drew closer, Ulmek halted Leitos with a withering stare. “Is that him?” He was shorter than Ba’Sel and of an age with him. His deeply bronzed skin clung to the bones of his face, making it into a brooding, sinister mask.
“Yes,” Ba’Sel said, affectionately clapping a hand on his shoulder. “We cannot hold him to account.”
“You may soon change your mind,” Ulmek said gruffly.
“Has something happened?” Ba’Sel demanded.
“Besides the enemy at your heels, Alon’mahk’lar are swarming the eastern hills near the Arch of Tracien, and more have been spotted just south of the White Dunes. We have heard nothing out of the north or west. Daris and Sumahn should have returned before now, but have not.”
“Our enemies have been closer before. As to our brothers, they are both of them young and strong-”
“And reckless,” Ulmek interjected. “It would not surprise me if either of them joined battle with one of the Sons of the Fallen, hoping to collect a trophy to prove they had.”
“They know better.”
“As did we,” Ulmek said with a harsh chuckle, “but that never stayed our hands.”
Ba’Sel ignored that. “Is the Sanctuary ready?”
“Before the last sounding faded, all were armed and waiting,” Ulmek said with a note of pride.
“Alon’mahk’lar come behind us,” Ba’Sel said gravely, “and also their wolves.”
“Wolves?” Ulmek spat. “I knew the day it was decided to help those wretches we would pay a price.”
Leitos looked between them, trying to understand why they would have let wolves into the Sanctuary.
“Come,” Ba’Sel said, “we must join our brothers and prepare to fend off our enemy.”
Ulmek shook his head and cursed bitterly. “Even now, you cannot admit that you erred.”
“Rest assured, we will speak of this later,” Ba’Sel said, looking ten years older.
“If we live that long,” Ulmek growled. He stalked into the waiting gloom, leaving Ba’Sel and Leitos to follow or stay.
“Do not mind him,” Ba’Sel said wearily. “Ever has Ulmek been given to wrath for wrath’s sake. But there is no better man to have at your side in battle.”
Leitos looked after Ulmek. “What did he mean about ‘helping wretches?’ ”
“Let us hurry,” Ba’Sel said, pointedly ignoring the question. “As I said before, there is someone waiting for you.”
“It is Zera, isn’t it?” Leitos said, glad for the distraction.
“Love,” Ba’Sel muttered with a shake of his head, and turned away.
Grinning sheepishly, Leitos followed.
Chapter 27
A dozen doors of thick, iron-banded wood-all of which were shut and barred by robed watchmen upon their passing-stood between them and the Sanctuary. Leitos had never fully imagined the fortress of the Brothers of the Crimson Shield, but he had anticipated more than what he encountered when he passed through the final doorway.
In the light of dozens of torches, the chamber reached no more than ten paces high, spread twice as wide, and ran half again as long. Along the curve of one wall, wooden ladders led up to a ledge that gave access to what could only be sleeping quarters, which were not so different than the cells in which he had slept in the mines. And where he had thought that perhaps there would be hundreds of warriors, their numbers proved pitifully small, no more than four score. All save a handful had assembled at the far end of the chamber, while the remainder ran past Ba’Sel and Leitos with brief nods of greeting.
“I hoped you would have more time for your reunion, but you must hurry,” Ba’Sel said.
Looking for Zera, Leitos asked, “Where is she?”
Ba’Sel gave him an unreadable look, then pointed to a man firing arrows into a plump sack. Something about the man’s posture caught Leitos’s attention. The man who turned was the last he expected to see. His mouth fell open in disbelief when his grandfather’s gray eyes found his.
“Leitos!” Adham cried, hastily stuffing the arrow he had been about to fire back into the quiver at his waist. He sounded less hoarse than Leitos remembered, and he looked stronger. He caught Leitos in his arms.
Leitos awkwardly returned the embrace. Of Zera, there was no sign, and despite his joyful surprise, he wondered why Ba’Sel had never said outright that his grandfather was waiting and not the woman who had rescued him from the Hunters.
The next Leitos knew, he had sat down at his grandfather’s feet, his legs too weak to hold him. He tried to say something, anything, but confusion ruled his mind.
Adham squatted down, his eyes showing concern. “Are you injured?” He ran his hands over Leitos’s shoulders and arms.
“You … I thought….” Leitos’s words dried up and he drew back to get a better look. Ever had Adham been emaciated, and he was still thin, but now he looked younger, his flesh filled out. Even his wisp of shoulder length white hair was thicker and shot through with streaks of iron gray.
“I saw you die,” Leitos muttered, unsteadily gaining his feet. Leitos backed a step away, then another. “Are you a … a spirit?”
“He is no spirit,” Ba’Sel said.
“You need water, food, and rest,” Adham said.
“I saw you die in the mines,” Leitos insisted. “How can you be here … unless-”
All weariness drained away, and he lurched clear. “Who are you?” he spat.
“You know me,” Adham said, raising his hands to show he meant no harm. “I escaped the mines soon after you did. It was a terrible battle, but we drove the slavemasters back. Others fled with me, but in our search for you, the desert took our kindred, one by one, until only I remained. The Alon’mahk’lar who survived the rebellion drove me far to the north. In time, I was able to escape.”
Leitos shook his head, unable to believe his grandfather was alive. But he was. There could be no question that the man who stood before him was the same who had raised him.