Slowly, Leitos approached his grandfather, heart swelling, tears brimming. He caught the old man in a fierce hug, feeling as though a part of himself that had been long dead was blossoming into new, vibrant life. Adham returned the embrace.
At last they broke apart, and Leitos faced Ba’Sel with a hopeful grin. “Where is Zera? Have you hidden her away somewhere?”
“There is no time to explain,” Ba’Sel said distractedly. “If our enemies have not found their way into the lower passages by now, they soon will.”
“Is she safe?” Leitos asked. “At least you can tell me that.”
Ba’Sel raised himself up to his full height. “I share your concern,” he said stiffly. “She is as a daughter to me.”
“But is she alive?” Leitos pressed.
“I have little doubt that she is,” Ba’Sel said.
Before Leitos could ask anything else, Ulmek trotted up with a harried expression. “Word has come that Alon’mahk’lar have passed under the Arch of Tracien and are converging on the Gates of the Sleeping Jackal.”
“How many?” Ba’Sel asked.
Ulmek swallowed. “Hundreds. An equal force marches from the south. Thank the gods that neither group is led by their wolves. Nevertheless, we have little time before they attack.”
“How could they have found this place?” Adham demanded, sounding as he had the day he rose up to challenge the slavemasters, like a king of men. “Unless one of your own has betrayed you?”
Ba’Sel and Ulmek shared a look with Adham that verified his unthinkable question. Adham cursed under his breath.
“If you can use that bow,” Ba’Sel said, “there is a place for you in our ranks.”
“It has been a long time,” Adham said, raising the double-curved bow before him, “but my arms and eyes have not forgotten its use.” He took a deep breath. “You have given me refuge, and now I must ask you to extend that courtesy to my kindred. Keep Leitos with you … and keep him safe.”
Ba’Sel said, “There is nowhere safe, and the most dangerous place at the moment is among our number. But I give my word, I will guard Leitos with my life, as long as it lasts me.”
“You told me your snares could hold off an army,” Leitos protested, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Ba’Sel shook his head. “An army that has no knowledge of our defenses would suffer great losses, but-”
“But since those who betrayed us and were removed from our order are among the demons that attack us,” Ulmek said, grinding his teeth in rage, “those traps are all but useless.”
“We are caught,” Ba’Sel admitted, looking between Ulmek and Adham. “I did not believe we could be, but we are. To make our stand here ensures our deaths, to the last. Yet, even if we flee, many of us will perish.”
“A few of us can stand,” Ulmek said grimly. “Our counterattack will serve as a diversion so the rest may escape. You are our leader, Ba’Sel. Take our brothers from here. I will stay behind with a few others.”
Before Ba’Sel could argue, the heavy door blocking the entrance to the lower passages exploded in a blast of indigo fire. One moment Leitos was looking between Ba’Sel, Ulmek, and Adham, wondering how things could have turned out so badly, and the next moment a hot fist of fire and smoke smashed into him. He floundered on his back, ears ringing. Shards of splintered wood and twists of iron rained down around him.
As the worst of the smoke began to clear, Ba’Sel roared and faced the invaders. One side of his robes blazed, but he entered the fray with sword bared. Ulmek shouted something over his shoulder, then joined his brother against two wolves struggling to squeeze through the narrow doorway. Growls became agonized yelps as the two men attacked, swords slashing.
“Get up!” Adham shouted, his voice muted to Leitos’s ears.
Leitos struggled up and followed after his grandfather. They did not retreat far before Adham turned back. No fear marked his expression, nor did he hesitate. As the chaos spread, Leitos’s only dazed thought was to wonder just who his grandfather had been before the Alon’mahk’lar had chained him.
Adham circled to one side and nocked an arrow. He waited until Ulmek and a smoldering Ba’Sel danced back a pace from their foes, then fired the shaft. The arrow streaked into the eye of the nearest wolf. Still jammed tight against its companion, the beast let out a terrible squeal, and began swinging its great head back and forth. Another arrow flashed into its bristled neck. The creature’s remaining eye dimmed, and blood spilled over its lolling tongue.
Ba’Sel charged in again, Ulmek by his side. They hacked at the wolves, steel ringing off thick skulls. Leitos’s insides turned at the reek of crushed bone and spilled blood that flooded from the carnage.
“Is that all?” Ulmek challenged when the wolves went still. A wild light glazed his eyes, and he gave the nearest wolf another swipe with his sword. His laughter, harsh and bellowing, mixed with the steel’s clang to make a brutal, ugly song.
A dozen brothers had come near, weapons held ready. The two wolf corpses began to shift and slide. Something was pushing against them from behind. The gathered brothers fell into wary stances, forming an arc of edged steel, spears, and drawn bows poised to attack whatever came through the doorway.
Adham pulled Leitos farther back, then placed a dagger in his hand. His grandfather seemed more imposing than he ever had before. There was nothing left of the chained man in his posture or in his gaze.
“No matter what comes,” he said in a stony voice, eyeing the dead wolves, “fight until there is no breath in your breast or blood in your veins. You are a child of the north, and that is our way.”
Leitos focused on drawing strength from his fear, the way Ba’Sel had said, but fear did not trouble him. One thought, however, did. All he had done to stay free had been for nothing. He would die this day. The dagger in his hand felt heavy and blunt, utterly useless, so he tucked it into his belt. If he fought, it would be with his bare hands.
“Do you understand?” Adham asked, a note of sorrow tingeing his voice. We are about to die, he might have said, but we will die proud.
Leitos nodded, wishing he had seen Zera once more.
Silence fell, broken only by the grotesque sounds of the shifting carcasses. One tumbled clear in a boneless heap. The creature’s broad skull, nearly severed from its neck, lolled. Where the corpse had been lodged, an irregular patch of darkness looked with festering malice upon the waiting warriors.
Instead of heaving the other wolf out with first, whatever sheltered within that darkness pulled it from sight by slow increments. Leitos waited, not daring to breathe.
The swath of darkness gradually redefined itself into an open doorway. Materializing from within, growing larger, twins points of emerald fire burned with hellish life. Leitos moaned low in his throat, knowing what he saw, but refusing to believe it.
Chapter 28
“No!” Leitos tried to scream, but the denial languished, never gathering the strength needed to escape his mind. Those green eyes drew nearer. Leitos fought for a deep breath, but shock and disbelief squeezed his chest tight.
“Make ready,” Adham said, taking three resolute strides forward to stand with the brothers. He nocked arrow to string and drew it back. The bow’s bone-and-wood limbs creaked as they reached full draw, and Leitos thought he could hear his grandfather’s pulse singing softly through the taut string.
Zera moved into the smoked light of the Sanctuary, dragging behind her a pair of dark, vaporous wings. Hers was a face of beautiful death in the eldritch light blazing from her gaze. As with the sooty gloom swirling in her wake, there was something ethereal about her, an aspect of transparency.
Leitos met her stare and something unspoken passed between them. A part of him wanted to run to her, wanted to feel her touch. That part tried to convince him that he was dreaming, that even now they were together, evading demonic wolves in some high mountain pass….