James West - Shadow and Steel

“That bloody fruit wine stole your wits,” Adham growled, thankful once more that he had not partaken of the filthy Fauthian drink.

Ba’Sel nodded slowly. “I remember it, a ghastly nectar, like spoiled honey and rotten fruit. But after a few swallows it … it took away cares that had been with me for so many years.” In a whining tone that Adham found unnerving, he said, “I felt free for the first time since that repugnant princeling strode from the crumbling temple in the marshes, his eyes gone white, and his skin hanging like a man suffering from a wasting sickness. Little did we know that many of us had been changed.” He paused again with a shudder, then went on hollowly.

“That boy changed inside the temple, gained dark powers. He laid waste with strange fire, burning my kindred to ash in a blink. He summoned a serpent from the mud, a creature of wood and bark and flesh. Kian ordered us away, and so we fled … even knowing he could never survive alone. But he did survive. Kian was not man to die easily. He was a true leader, a king.”

“My father never chose to wear a crown,” Adham said with fierce pride, “but he did serve his people.”

Ba’Sel did not seem to hear him. “Some days after we regrouped, Kian returned to us. Ishin, our leader then, gave him a bowl of snakefish soup. All but Ishin gagged on the taste. Kian fared no better. Ishin was offended, which was nothing novel.” Ba’Sel went quiet again, then spoke in a fearful hush.

“That night, my cousin Fenahk came from the forest … but he was my kin no more. He had become something else, and the creature inside him-the demon, the Mahk’lar-tore him apart from the inside, like a moth emerging from a cocoon, ripping his flesh and bones to shreds. Kian and my brothers fought the beast, as did Ishin. In fear, I remained apart, using my bow. Kian destroyed the creature, seemingly with his voice alone … but not before it had killed Ishin.

“After that, it fell on me to lead the Asra a’Shah. It was a task I never hoped for, but it was mine to do. Perhaps I was too young, or maybe I was never suited to lead. A madness came over the world in the early days after the Upheaval. It broke some part of me that has yet to heal.”

Uncomfortable with the revelations, Adham set himself to planning a way to escape, or at least a way to kill some few of his captors. Until my last breath and drop of blood , he thought, taking solace in the stark and unbending ways of his ice-blooded kinsmen.

Try as he might to turn his thoughts, a question kept arising in the forefront of his mind. Would I have behaved any differently than Ba’Sel? He wanted to believe that he would have shouldered the task as his father had, but was not sure.

Kian’s entire life, from his time as a displaced orphan scrounging for crumbs on the deadly streets of Marso, to his rise as a coveted mercenary, had shaped him into the man he needed to become in order to defeat a depraved princeling with the stolen powers of a god, and to cast Peropis back into the Thousand Hells. Even his later rise to rule over the fractured kingdom of Izutar, and his unceasing resistance against the Faceless One, seemed preordained.

Adham shook his head, unsure if he could have prevailed, had he stood in place of his father or Ba’Sel.

Halan’s sudden howl destroyed Adham’s brooding counsel. Fresh beads of sweat showed on Ba’Sel’s brow, and he began muttering to himself.

“Unless you want to suffer whatever nightmare Adu’lin has planned for us,” Adham urged, “you better find the strength that made you the leader of the Brothers of the Crimson Shield.”

“To what end?” Ba’Sel pleaded. “We are as good as dead-the same fate that has befallen all my brethren these long years.”

“I should wring your coward’s neck,” Adham snapped.

“What cowardice is it to accept that which we cannot alter? Better to make your peace with the Silent God of All, and pray for a sleep of serenity to fall over you before … before they begin.”

Loathing churned in Adham’s throat, and for a moment he thought he might scream in rage. Somehow, he kept his voice low, and asked, “How can you go willingly to your doom? You were an Asra a’Shah, a man born and bred for battle. Is there none of that man left inside you?”

“So many years,” Ba’Sel sobbed. “Four lifetimes of men have I trod the face of the broken world. I have seen the death of thousands at the hands of Alon’mahk’lar, and those who bent their knees to the Faceless One. Longer than you have been alive, I have fought, when I would have rather raised good, tall sons, and tilled the soil of my homelands in peace.”

“ ‘Tilled the soil?’ ” Adham snarled, losing all patience.

The guard glanced their way.

Adham bowed his head, and said from the corner of his mouth, “You are a man of war, and have been all your life. There are no crops for you, and there never has been. The only soil to till lies in the black hearts of all who would destroy humankind at the behest of a soulless demon. If there is any hope for those who come after us, you must resist the Faceless One.”

“What do we know of souls, I wonder?” Ba’Sel mused, head turning one way and another, as if looking at a world behind his blindfold that only he could see.

For a long time Adham stared, understanding coming slowly.

Abruptly Ba’Sel laughed, a giddy, childish squeal of delight. “Mother?” he cried. He nodded his head eagerly, and began rocking on his knees. “Oh, yes, I am hungry.”

“May Pa’amadin grant you peace,” Adham murmured, his scorn fading. The fabric of Ba’Sel’s will had torn, and the delusion that now held him might never relinquish its grip. In that moment, Adham felt pity in his heart not for a vanquished warrior, but for a simple man forced to a path he had never been suited to travel.

But how many of us are suited to stand against those who would destroy us for no more reason than that we live? Adham was not sure anyone, even himself, could stand against the enemies of humankind, but he had to try.

He glanced at the guard, now staring straight ahead. All the other guards had gone elsewhere, ordered so by Adu’lin, who no doubt believed that he had cowed his unruly prisoners to absolute submission.

Soon that lone guard, confident that he would meet no resistance, would come for Ba’Sel. When he did, Adham intended to make him pay for that confidence.

Damoc’s clan, some three score strong, marched quickly through the night toward Armala. With dawn still an hour off, the forested path to the black city lay under a dewy pall of darkness and impregnable quiet. Leitos wished that same calm would settle over his heart.

After learning from the Yatoans who had been held in reserve outside the Throat of Balaam that the demonic swarm had made for the Fauthian city, all Leitos could think about was the safety of his father and the Brothers.

The doubts he had stubbornly nurtured about Belina’s account of the Fauthians had vanished. With the Throat of Balaam and the Faceless One so close to Armala, Leitos could not believe that Adu’lin was unaware of the place, or the dark entity that sheltered within its depths. He found it troubling that all the Brothers, himself included, had believed that the Fauthians were a decent, peaceful folk.

How could we have trusted them? Leitos’s only answer was Ba’Sel’s assurances. Disagreeable as it was, their leader had led them into a terrible trap. It pained Leitos to admit that he could never allow Ba’Sel to make such an error again. Once the Brothers knew the truth, they would turn from him, and join swords with the Yatoans. What happened to Ba’Sel after that, Leitos could not guess.