Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

“Are you certain you want to do this?” he asked quietly in Bolgish.

“Is there another option? Besides, I’m the Iliachenva’ar. It’s my duty to bring light into a dark place.”

Achmed snorted and began to lower the pole into the shaft.

“Perhaps you should wedge your blade squarely inside my head, then. There has been no illumination burning in there for a long time; it’s been utterly absent of reason ever since I allowed myself to get caught up in this ridiculous crusade of yours. Hurry. And remember, if there’s a moment’s hesitation, or threat, kill the little bastards. That was the agreement.”

“Yes. That was the agreement.” Her smile shone as brightly as her eyes for a moment, then disappeared into the murky blackness at the bottom of the well shaft.

A moment later the dark vertical tunnel filled with a brilliant pulse of light, and a hum that rang like a silvery horn being sounded. Achmed glanced over the edge of the tunnel. Rhapsody stared up at him from the bottom of the well shaft, Daystar Clarion in her hand. The sword of melded element fire and starlight burned brightly, sending glistening waves of illumination over fetid water on the shaft’s floor. She smiled again, then waded to the tiled hole in the well-shaft wall and crawled inside the horizontal tunnel, holding the sword before her like a torch.

Achmed watched as the blazing light from Daystar Clarion receded into a faint glow inside the tunnel. He turned around just in time to see the child of the Rakshas lurch to the side, rolling into the firecoals that burned beneath one of the steaming vats of hot slip.

Achmed lunged with the hooked pole, but it was too late. A shower of burning coals sprayed at him as the demon-spawn, now free of the leg ropes that had incinerated in the fire, kicked the coal logs and burning dung out from under the vat, scrambling beneath the hot metal of the cauldron’s base to the other side. He could hear the apprentices’ muffled cries behind him, probably more from fear than pain, as the sparks hit the dirt floor and burned out in puffs of dusty smoke.

Beneath the vat he could see the boy plunging his hands into the fiery coals, burning free of those bindings as well. Then the apprentice retreated even farther behind the cauldron of slip, apparently unharmed by the fire.

Achmed swept the long pole under the vat, trying to catch the leg of the boy, but barely had time to leap clear as the child pulled the chain on the cauldron, upending the enormous vessel and sending its boiling contents spilling out in a great steaming mudslide onto the floor of the room.

Swiftly Achmed swung the hooked pole at the nearer of the two apprentices, the bald boy to the right of the alcove, catching the ropes by which his hands were bound and hauling him clear of the river of hot mud. The other apprentice, directly in the pathway of the boiling slip, was buried in the ton of slag within seconds; the blond wisps of his hair disappeared into the steaming dirt as the muddy liquid swallowed his body, filling his mouth, then nose, then eyes in fragments of a second, drowning him instantly.

With a violent shake Achmed loosed the trembling apprentice from the end of the pole, leaving the bound boy gasping in fear behind a stack of broken pallets. He turned back in time to see the demon-spawn, now standing on the far side of the tipped vat closest to the ove^ hurl a mold at the cast-iron bell. The heavy weight collided with the bell and reverberated loudly; the ripples of sound tore across Achmed’s skin and eyelids, sending waves of pain through his body to the roots of his hair.

He swallowed his fury, leapt across the space between them, and lunged, slamming the hooked end of the pole into the boy’s shoulder as his arm was coming down from tossing the weight. He could hear the crack as the collarbone snapped; the black-eyed apprentice gasped aloud, the first time Achmed had witnessed him experience pain, though a moment later he determined it might just have been shock. The boy glanced in the direction of the journeymen’s wing, then turned back and stared at him, readying a lunge, but he barely had time to parry a second swing of the staff. The heavy iron hook shattered his wrist and pushed him off balance.

The insolent look in the demon-spawn’s eyes had cleared, leaving nothing behind but panic. His arms and legs stiffened for a moment; then he dashed toward the empty wire racks, desperately searching for cover. But Achmed was too fast for him; he arced the pole in the other direction, catching the apprentice in the ribs with sufficient force to break the shaft. The Bolg king drove the end of the pole into the boy’s shoulder again, then shoved him, full force, into the base of the open kiln. Before the boy could catch his breath, Achmed was upon him, grabbing his rope belt and singed shirt to lift and heave him through the opening. The broken wrist and shoulder offered little resistance. Achmed firmly closed the door and wedged the latch closed before he brushed the still-hot ash and embers from his gloves.

He listened. A moment later he could hear them coming, footfalls and sounds of alarm approaching from the journeymen’s quarters.

Achmed looked quickly around the room, gauging the shadows. A deep one hovered near the farthest kiln, next to which stood rows of pottery in various stages of firing, forming a dark labyrinth. He ducked into the shadow as the pounding of boots drew nearer.

Into the room spilled a cadre of men, more than a dozen, many heavyset, most of them trying to adjust sleep-blind eyes to the destruction in the firing room. Those at the head of the group exclaimed in shock at the upended cauldron and the oozing hill of hardening slip that had been dumped onto the floor. From their initial exchanges Achmed could tell that they believed they had been summoned because of what seemed to be a disastrous accident.

Then they discovered Omet, bound and gagged behind the broken pallets.

During the pause that followed while the journeymen, now armed, searched the room, Achmed reached behind his back and silently drew his cwellan, the asymmetrical crossbow-like weapon of his own design, loading it with disks without a sound. He slid quietly along the wall near the maze of shelves, wanting to be in position as soon as the cadre realized he was there.

It took longer than he expected. Almost a full minute passed before the muttering came to an abrupt halt, and one of the thinner men made a dash for the bell.

Achmed stepped out of the shadow and fired, sending three razor-sharp disks, thin as butterfly wings but made of serrated steel, through the back of the would-be messenger’s neck, severing his spine and all but decapitating him. The body spun in a half-circle to the ground, the blade he carried clattering against some of the stone molds on the dirt floor. Two more of the journeymen died a moment later, felled by the deadly disks. Then Achmed stepped back into the shadows once again.

Like rats when a lantern is suddenly unhooded the journeymen scattered, fleeing to all corners of the firing room. Achmed counted them silently; he had seen thirteen come in, and had dispatched three. Ten remained for him to deal with.

Odds he liked.

He crept quietly through the shadows that writhed on the wall leading up to the alcove, passing the place where the bound apprentice still remained behind the pallets. Achmed paused long enough to stare down at the boy, still hog-tied—the journeymen had not bothered to release him—and held a finger to his lips. The apprentice did not move or cry out, but merely blinked, signaling his understanding.

Slowly Achmed circumvented where the boy Rhapsody had called Omet sat, stepping around the broken pallets and the outer reaches of the new hill of mud. The shadow of a man with a long knife lurked in the opening of the alcove, waiting for Achmed to pass so he could stab from behind.