“Ba’Sel will not understand,” Leitos said, getting to his feet. “Ulmek will, but he could react in a way that gets us all killed.”
Adham offered a devilish grin. “If we are to die this day, then let us be about it with courageous hearts.”
With a deep sigh, Leitos made his way toward Ulmek. One of the Fauthians glanced his way, but Leitos kept on, moving with no great haste. The Fauthian turned back to his companions.
When Leitos reached Ulmek’s side, the man gave him a searching look. “What troubles you?”
“We are in danger,” Leitos said. “These Fauthians are more than they appear, and I believe they are dangerous.”
“Ba’Sel does not think so,” Ulmek said, his expression sour.
“Ba’Sel is wrong,” Leitos said, then quickly told Ulmek the story his father had just passed on. He finished by advising, “We must get away from these Fauthians.”
Ulmek surprised Leitos by clapping a hand on his shoulder. “We will, little brother. But, as you can see, we have no way to escape. For the time being, we will let them play the generous hosts. Who knows, we might learn something from them that can be used against the Faceless One.”
“What of Ba’Sel?”
Now Ulmek’s face hardened. “He is still our leader. Much as I disagree with him, I trust him with my life.” When he said this, Leitos noticed a flicker of doubt cross his face. It vanished as quickly as seen. “Our task is to stay alive long enough to let him come around.”
“But what if he does not?” Leitos hated asking.
“He will,” Ulmek said with more surety than Leitos felt. He gazed across the beach to the Fauthian leader. “However, should the worst happen, be prepared to fight.”
Before he could say anymore, Adu’lin caught everyone’s attention, and motioned for them to join his group.
“As I warned you before,” the Fauthian leader said, “these are dangerous lands. All the more so after nightfall. That is when the Yatoans are at their worst, raiding at will, slaughtering anyone they find not of their clans. No place is safe-save Armala, our city,” he said, pointing at the mist-shrouded mountain peaks.
“A long journey,” Ulmek said, “when half the day is already gone.”
Adu’lin nodded. “All the more reason to make haste. If we leave within the hour, we can reach Armala by dusk. That is,” he added with a challenging grin, “if you Geldainians can keep up with us?” A few derisive hoots met this, and Adu’lin’s grin widened.
Ba’Sel quieted the men with a curt gesture. “What of the Kelrens?”
Adu’lin glanced at the bound slavers, as if noticing them for the first time. “Bring them along, of course. Perhaps, in time, we can tame the hearts of these brutes.” He did not mention what would happen if that plan failed. “Now go, friends, and gather what you will for the journey.”
Before Leitos could join his father, Ulmek pulled him aside, and pressed a near empty haversack into his arms. “Keep this with you at all times, little brother, and guard it with your life. For now, keep your head down, play the submissive slave-I’m sure you remember how. I will tell a few of the others to do the same.”
“Can you do the same?” Leitos asked doubtfully.
“Absolutely not,” Ulmek said. “My role in this game is to do everything I can to keep these Fauthians focused on me and a few others. I will present myself as a potential threat. That will give you more freedom to be my eyes and ears.”
Leitos had never played the spy, but he was glad that someone amongst the Brothers had some kind of plan. “Agreed,” he said, studying the edge of the forest. He saw a faint flicker, and then a shape, there and gone in a blink. Startled, sure he had seen a face peering at him, he searched the forest, but it had vanished.
“Something wrong?” Ulmek asked.
Leitos considered telling Ulmek what he had seen, but instead held his tongue. With all that talk of the Yatoans, he had probably just imagined a person watching them.
After they set out, moving at a fast trot along a stone-paved trail that led deep into the damp green forest, Leitos kept seeing that face in his mind, and began to think it was not something conjured from his imagination. As the day waned and the party climbed higher, he wondered why that face had seemed so familiar.
Chapter 13
Belina streaked through the sun-dappled forest, leaping fallen logs and narrow brooks, scampering up and over moss-covered boulders, tearing down faint trails hung with vines and creepers. She did not give in to the aching burn in her chest until after she had caught hold of a hidden rope, and swung across a plunging gorge.
She landed on the far side, secured the rope among hanging vines, and flung herself down. Gasping and looking up through the dense foliage, she saw only quaking leaves alight with the vibrant red and orange glimmers of sunset. Dusk’s first bats took the place of chattering birds, and wheeled and fluttered after insects. Even those things she barely noticed, her mind fixed on the young man she had seen on the beach.
She had seen his likeness in visions, as far back as she could remember. She feared him more than she feared the Fauthians and the slavers, yet he was the one she had to protect at all costs, even if the cost meant her life. If she failed, she would cease to be, along with her people, and the rest of humankind, all erased from the memory of time.
Belina abruptly sat up. She was supposed to protect him, but instead, shocked at seeing him, she had run off like a girl fleeing a charging boar. “I have to go back and find him,” she muttered.
Always in her visions the youth was older, a man steeped in shadow and pain, a warrior of steel, a bringer of death. The young man she had seen on the beach looked different, as yet untouched by the trials awaiting him … but he was the same. She knew it in her heart.
She stood and looked back the way she had come. Why had he and those others been with the Fauthians? Could it be that they had their own seers, and meant to use the young man against her people?
By now, the Fauthians would be nearing Armala, a sprawling fortress-city built all of black stone. Armala was older than the Fauthians, older than the Yatoans, perhaps as old as the dawning of the world. It was as much a place of death for her kind as the Throat of Balaam, that cavern of howls and blue fire, where the Fauthians gave captured Yatoan women and girls into the hands of Alon’mahk’lar. So, too, was it the place where they bowed to their god, the oppressor of all peoples, the maker of nightmares, the Faceless One.
Belina remained undecided, until the last of the daylight gave way to night. If she was to aid the young man, she must enlist her father. That was easier thought that done, for her father did not believe her visions, and neither did most of her clan. But for the sake of the world, she had to try.
She set out with a clear purpose in mind, her feet dancing unerringly over shadowed paths.
Chapter 14
Armala did not rest so high in the mountains as Adu’lin had suggested, but about halfway to the highest peak. By the time they halted before a high wall, the paved path had leveled out and the sky had grown thick and dark under a shroud of glittering stars and a rising half-moon. Inland, the air was stifling, and fragrant with rotting leaves and mud. Strange calls filled the night, and Leitos heard Adu’lin mention something about monkeys and ferocious cats as large as a man, and black as midnight. He had never seen either creature, but had heard enough descriptions from the Brothers to know what they were.
Torches flickered atop the wall, which was built into a narrow gap in a vertical spine of rock that cut across the path and fell into a lightless gorge. Overhead, guards bearing bows and halberds moved behind a crenelated parapet.