Skagi and Cree found them sometime later. They were similarly adorned with the black swords, and though they did not weep as Chanoch had, both brothers wore the rapture on their faces. Ashok could feel the power radiating from them, the wholeness.
Ashok caught his breath. All around him, he saw the black tattoos, the warriors in training who had taken their oaths, the final steps that would bind them completely into service of Ikemmu and their leader. The swords were everywhere, yet Ashok’s skin bore no mark except the flames of the nightmare. He stood out from the rest, a pale blemish among the joyous celebration. No one spoke of it. They accepted him as one of their own, but suddenly, Ashok felt cold. The fire couldn’t touch him. He was a creature apart.
He turned, looking for an open space, a place to breathe and escape the press of bodies, the reek of sweat and dirt. Stumbling, he made it to the shadows of the tower. He fell on his knees and vomited. Pressing his face against a patch of cool ground, he breathed in and out.
Footsteps sounded behind him, barely discernible above the noise of the celebration. Perhaps he heard them because he knew, before he looked up, who would be watching him.
Vedoran stood armed and fully clothed, which made Ashok feel horribly exposed. He stepped forward, his movements graceful, and handed Ashok a bundle that included his bone scale armor and the weapons he’d thoughtlessly discarded during the dance.
Ashok wiped his mouth, took the clothing, and with a nod of thanks began to dress himself. When he’d finished, he turned to face Vedoran, who watched the celebration dispassionately.
“They form the circles on the eve of every long journey undertaken by the shadar-kai,” Vedoran said before Ashok could speak. “The ritual will last until the Monril bell, long after those making the journey have gone to rest.”
“An offering to Tempus?” Ashok said. “To ensure a successful mission?”
“A prayer for success, perhaps,” Vedoran said. “But mostly it’s a method of girding the soul for what lies ahead. We’ll be traveling on the open plain for many days before we reach the bog. Unless we encounter other dangers-and I pray we do-we’ll have no one but each other and the wind for company. The inactivity of a long march … ”
“We risk losing ourselves,” Ashok said. He remembered well his own solitary days on the Shadowfell. He’d sought danger for the same reason.
“The other races, especially the merchants who are used to long, monotonous caravan runs, mock us for creating such ceremony for what they consider an insignificant distance,” Vedoran said. He dipped his head, his lips quirking in some private amusement. “Your halfling friend would say as much.”
“How do you know Darnae?” Ashok said, his eyes narrowing. “Have you been following me?”
Vedoran shrugged. “I’ve been curious about you since we first met. I’ve wondered why you hide yourself away in ruined buildings and scribble on parchment, why you went after that shadar-kai in the tavern,” he said. “At first I thought you confronted him for amusement, but then I began to think it was something more.”
“Are you satisfied now?” Ashok said tersely.
Vedoran met Ashok’s eyes. They held each other’s gazes for a long breath. Neither spoke. Finally, Vedoran smiled again and went back to watching the shadar-kai dance.
Ashok started to walk away, but Vedoran grabbed his shoulder. Ashok resisted the urge to throw off his hand and merely turned to glare at the graceful warrior.
“Always remember exactly what you are and what you are not,” Vedoran said. “Otherwise, that’s where you’ll be left.” He nodded at the vomit-stained ground. “Weak and begging for guidance that will never come.”
Ashok reached up and calmly removed Vedoran’s hand from his shoulder. “May the gods, any and all, grant us success on this journey,” he said. “And may Vedoran lead us safely home again.”
Vedoran nodded. “Sleep well, Ashok,” he said. “Sleep dreamlessly.”
When Vedoran left Ashok he went to the trade district, to the small temple with the green-painted door. Traedis did not look surprised to see him.
“He’s lost to you,” the cleric said when Vedoran had finished telling him of Ashok. “Like so many others before him, he will take Tempus and Uwan into his heart. You must think of yourself now, Vedoran.”
“Uwan put me in charge of the mission,” Vedoran said. “There is still the possibility that I will be rewarded-”
“With what-more coin for the sellsword?” the cleric challenged. “Are you so blind that you truly think Uwan will give you power and esteem you above Ashok, who he believes is sent by the warrior god Himself! You must look beyond Tempus, Vedoran. There are other gods in Ikemmu.”
“And where do your gods live, Traedis,” Vedoran said. “In small temples or secret hideaways? Where is the glory in that?”
“Then help us,” Traedis said. “Join us, and as our numbers swell we will become a force that Uwan can’t afford to ignore. We can change things, Vedoran.”
In his heart, Vedoran knew Traedis spoke wisely. Uwan and Ashok were in each other’s thrall, and Tempus had a stranglehold on the city. But he would not deny his mission, not if it meant he could prove that he was just as capable-no, more so-as Tempus’s faithful. His pride demanded that he show Uwan and the rest that he could succeed without visions and whispers from Tempus to guide his hand.
“We will see,” Vedoran said. “If I return from this mission, and all goes as you say, then we will surely speak again.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Six days later, Ashok, Vedoran, Skagi, Cree, and Chanoch sat with their backs to a cluster of stunted kindling trees, which he’d learned were called Dark Needles by Ikemmu’s shadar-kai. Similarly, they had found no good use for the spiny trees but the fire.
The Dark Needles were covered in a fine film of white dust. When Ashok had passed through the portal outside the city gates and tasted the open air of the Shadowfell for the first time in a month, he’d thought it deliciously sweet. But for four days now, a dust storm had been ravaging the plain. When Chanoch had first sighted the roiling clouds bearing down on them from the west, they had tried to outrun the storm. When it had overtaken them at last, it had been an exhilarating moment for all. Ashok had reveled in the dust searing his skin, feeling alone in the sudden darkness, yet a part of the storm.
They had pressed on, traveling until they could see no landmarks and risked becoming hopelessly lost in the painful fog. The shelter they’d found under the kindling trees was paltry at best. White dust covered Ashok’s entire body. He could feel the grit in his mouth, his ears, and buried in the roots of his hair. Their food was soaked in dust, as well as their clothing and bed things. No fire could withstand the fierce wind, so their fingers were numb with cold, and their minds were slowly following.
For the fourth time that day Ashok drew his dagger from its sheath and laid it against his bare flesh. He wanted so badly to press down, to feel something other than the dust scratching his skin.
Vedoran had forbid them to cut themselves. They were weak enough, he said, from having to ration gritty water and eat stale biscuits instead of the fresh meat they’d planned on hunting. But Vedoran couldn’t see his companions in the dust storm. The only impressions they had of each other were the occasional bits of conversation shouted over the wind. At all other times, they were silent, waiting and praying for the storm to pass.
Ashok laid the dagger against his arm and contemplated the pain. Sometimes, it was enough just to imagine the sensation rather than to actually experience it. His imagination could make up a lot of ground, if he willed it.
But in the end, the whicker and snort from over his left shoulder stopped him. The nightmare, his reins tied to the kindling tree, was no more able to move around in the storm than they. The dust had dulled his mane to a faint blue glow, and his red eyes were the only thing clearly visible in the unnatural darkness.