Ashok would not cut himself. He would not make himself any weaker than he already was while he held the nightmare’s lead. Neimal had placed a compulsion on the beast to calm him, but Ashok knew such magic would only have a superficial effect on the nightmare’s nature.
The only reason he had not tried to win his freedom was a feeling Ashok had. He couldn’t explain it, but they were connected somehow, the nightmare and he, ever since the night the beast had first sent him dreams. The nightmare read his intentions, if not Ashok’s thoughts. The journey was important. The beast knew he would finally have the chance to kill and feast.
He felt one of the others nudge his arm and tensed. Cree was suddenly at his ear, shouting.
“We need to speak!” Cree yelled.
Cree pulled him forward, and Ashok saw the silhouettes of the others converging. Cree threw a blanket over their heads to block out some of the dust and wind. He heard the scrape of a sunrod against the ground, and bright light filled the confined space. Vedoran cupped and dimmed the glow with his palm.
They were five ghosts in the muted light. They’d improvised masks to cover their mouths and noses, but it hardly helped.
“We have to move on,” Skagi said. Ashok could see how the light carved deep hollows into the brothers’ faces. They fidgeted and plucked at the flapping edges of the blanket to hold it in place.
“We can’t risk moving now,” Vedoran said. “We stay here until the storm passes.”
“How long will that be?” Cree demanded. “We’ll lose a tenday if this keeps up.”
“Then we lose a tenday,” Vedoran said.
“That’s fine with us,” Skagi said. “And you can explain it to Uwan when we bring back the corpses of his missing people.”
“If we blunder off course in the storm we lose just as much time,” Ashok said.
“This isn’t a discussion,” Vedoran said, a warning in his black eyes. “We stay here and wait out the storm. Anyone who disagrees can keep his thoughts to himself.”
Beneath the dust, Skagi’s face reddened, but Cree laid a restraining hand on his arm before he could retort. The tension in the small space threatened to explode.
Behind them, the nightmare snorted and neighed. Distracted, Skagi looked at Ashok. “What’s wrong with the beast?” he said.
“It’s choking on dust,” Cree joked. But Ashok was listening. He held up a hand.
“Do you hear that?” he said.
“Hear what?” Vedoran said. “There’s nothing but the damn wind.”
Ashok waited, and eventually the sound came again: a deep rumble underlying the piercing wind. “It’s thunder,” he said. “The nightmare smells the rain. This storm’s about to be swallowed.”
Vedoran raised his mask and pulled out from their makeshift tent. He returned a breath later. “Ashok’s right,” he said. “I can smell it too. Put this blanket away,” he told Cree. “Be ready to move out.”
The thunder grew louder. They huddled under the shelter of the kindling trees, Ashok holding the nightmare’s reins. Lightning flashed, and for the first time in days, they had a view across the plain.
“Did you see that?” Chanoch cried.
“What was it?” Skagi shouted.
At that instant, a jagged bolt split the sky and poured into the trunk of the kindling tree. The electric charge threw all five of them to the ground, and the nightmare reared and fell on his side, screaming.
The rain came then, a driving torrent that turned the dust on their bodies to a pasty white mud. When Ashok could see past the lightning blindness and muck, the dust had cleared, revealing a path before them, and in the distance, a rising black mass. Shadows writhed at its edges, and the lightning seemed to spear from its heart.
“There,” Chanoch cried. “What is that?”
Ashok dipped his head back and caught the rain in his mouth. The water burned his throat. He spat on the ground.
“It’s the witch,” he said, wiping his mouth in disgust. “These storms are hers. She must have seen us coming.”
Lightning savaged the tree again, and the warriors scattered. Ashok grabbed the nightmare’s reins and heaved himself onto the beast’s back. He leaned forward so he could whisper in his ear.
“We need your flame,” he said. “Show the witch you aren’t afraid.”
The nightmare screamed into the darkness and fire raced up his mane. Ashok sat back from the heat. The nightmare whipped his tail and shot sparks into the air. The fire burned off the dust and the wet, sending steam clouds toward the sky. The beast paced forward and screamed again as if in challenge.
Vedoran and the others gathered close to the nightmare’s flanks. Lightning continued to play across the open plain before them, but the beast strained against the reins, eager to run into the storm.
“Let it go,” Vedoran instructed Ashok. “We march,” he told the others. “Stay close to the beast.”
Ashok eased his grip on the reins, and the nightmare obligingly sprang forward, his long strides forcing the other shadar-kai to run to keep pace. They moved toward the shadow mass.
“Come! Come and give us a kiss, witch!” Skagi cried out and raised his falchion to the sky.
“Tempus!” Chanoch yelled, his arms thrown wide.
Ashok could hear the others shrieking in wild abandon as they ran alongside the flames. Vedoran held his hand out to graze the fire and tilted his head back to let the burning rain kiss his cheeks. Laughter rumbled from his chest, and the skin stretched taut across his face like a mask.
They passed a cluster of boulders and the remnants of a streambed. A lightning bolt struck the rocks, exploding stone. Ashok felt the stings as the tiny shards embedded in his flesh. He felt the nightmare’s body quiver, but the beast didn’t break stride.
Ashok’s eyes burned from the heat and the pain. He kept his legs tight around the nightmare’s flanks, half-expecting to be blown off by the lightning. He tried to see ahead of them in the rain, but instead of growing closer, the shadows appeared to be moving away.
Ashok wrapped the iron-shod reins around his knuckles and pulled. The nightmare screeched a protest and bucked his hindquarters in the air. Thrown forward, Ashok found his hands suddenly in the middle of a fire.
Cursing, he pulled back and almost lost his balance. Cree reached up to steady him. Ashok nodded his thanks and yanked on the reins.
The nightmare reared again, but he slowed, and the rest of the shadar-kai realized something was amiss.
“What is it?” Vedoran demanded.
“It’s a trick,” Ashok said. “She wants us to think the shadows are her bog. Likely she’ll lead us off a cliff before she’ll show us the way into her domain. In this storm, we wouldn’t know any better until it was too late.”
Vedoran squinted into the darkness at the roiling shadows and the lightning all around. His jaw tightened. “You’re right,” he said. “Turn around.”
Ashok wheeled the nightmare and dug in with his thighs. The beast broke into a halting run, and the shadar-kai hurried to follow.
A deafening roar of thunder rolled across the plain. The nightmare screamed in answer, and so the shadar-kai screamed too and brandished their weapons as they charged away from the black storm. The rain pelted them, burned their skin, and slowed their steps in the mud.
The witch doesn’t realize what she’s done, Ashok thought as he listened to his pounding heart. She should never have stopped the dust storm. After their long journey, his soul was awake at last. The stone shards in his leg and the blisters on his hands were proof that he was still alive. They would come through the storm.
“Fly!” Ashok cried, and reached out to grasp the flames. “Fly and let us all burn!”
They emerged from the storm breathless and bleeding, on the verge of a vast swamp. The rain had stopped, and the air had a dense, saturated feeling. The bog itself seemed a quiet haven in the middle of the open plain, a paradise after the violent storms. There were only the faint sounds of bird and animal life penetrating the thick canopy of leaves, moss, and undergrowth.