James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

Leitos could find no argument to counter that simple logic. Viewing humankind as less than animals, Alon’mahk’lar did not acknowledge the names by which people called each other. While the slavemasters had surely passed his description to every Hunter in Geldain, they would not have attached his name to it. He scanned the low, rounded hilltops, but saw nothing to indicate he was near his goal.

“If you search for the Crown of the Setting Sun,” Ba’Sel said, guessing Leitos’s intent, “then you seek in vain.”

“Has it been destroyed?” Leitos asked, dismayed.

“Many years gone,” Ba’Sel admitted.

“I do not understand.”

Ba’Sel tugged the end of his staff from the ground and signaled for Leitos to follow. He hesitated only a moment, then joined the brother. As they walked, Ba’Sel explained.

“We remain hidden by moving to new safe havens. If Alon’mahk’lar patrols come too close, we move. If any of our brothers are captured, we move. If there is any indication that our secrecy has been breached, we flee without hesitation. Sometimes our refuge is a mountaintop bastion, as was the first of its name, other times not. Moving so frequently, and finding suitable places to hide and train ourselves, makes for a difficult life. However, it has ensured that the servants of Faceless One have never found us after that first time. And like all others, he still looks in vain for the Crown of the Setting Sun, unable to accept that it no longer exists. At some point, he may realize his folly, but not-”

The wail of an Alon’mahk’lar horn cut him short. More followed suit, dozens, screaming like wicked spirits far back in the Mountains of Fire. When the horns fell silent, howls and guttural roars took up the cry of the hunt.

“And here I had planned to spend a pleasant day with a new friend,” Ba’Sel chuckled, strapping his sword belt across his back.

“It is time to run,” Ba’Sel said, repeating words Leitos had long since grown accustomed to hearing.

Ba’Sel trotted back to the road, then headed straight for the Mountains of Fire and the hunting Alon’mahk’lar . Leitos was about to question the man’s judgment, when they splashed to the center of the stream and turned south.

“The water will mask our scent,” Ba’Sel said, as if teaching an apprentice. Leitos only nodded. He had run enough since fleeing the mines to know he should conserve his breath when he could.

Where Leitos fought the maddening urge to take flight, Ba’Sel calmly stooped and brought a cupped handful of water to his lips. Only his dark eyes, scanning the wooded hillsides for any sign of movement, indicated that he felt any sense of alarm. Save for flitting birds and rustling leaves, nothing moved.

When the horns wailed anew, closer now, Ba’Sel set out downstream. Leitos splashed along in his wake, wondering how long he would be able to keep the pace after having run through the night. Soon enough he stopped thinking anything, except that he despised the sound of horns and the baying of demon wolves.

For many miles, the stream meandered slow and shallow. Moss slicked the stones below the surface, and more than once Ba’Sel had to pluck Leitos from the water. Soaked as Leitos was, he did not at first realize that the stream was getting wider and swifter. Fed by other streams coming down off the mountains, it was becoming a river.

“Can you swim?” Ba’Sel asked, raising his voice above the river’s deep, watery gurgle.

“Enough to keep from drowning,” Leitos said.

Ba’Sel eyed him askance, no doubt wondering how a slave had learned the skill, then nodded in acceptance. “That is enough.”

A flurry of howls went up, closer than ever, driven to a frenzy by the horns.

Ba’Sel glanced at Leitos’s pack. “If there is anything that cannot be replaced, take it out, and give the rest to me.”

Leitos handed over the pack. “I have nothing.”

“Swim where you need to, but let the current do the work of carrying you downstream,” Ba’Sel advised, his eyes on the steep, forested hillsides overlooking the river. “I will rejoin you shortly.”

Leitos’s heart sped up. “Where are you going?”

In his instructing tone, Ba’Sel said, “I am going to spread your scent through the forest. That will gain us some time to get ahead of these accursed beasts.” He paused, then said, “Are you afraid?”

Leitos saw no reason to lie. “Yes.”

“That is good,” Ba’Sel said, offering a comforting smile. “Let that fear into your soul, but do not let it run free. It will lend you strength. You must harness fear, and all other emotions, Leitos, bend their consuming, chaotic power to your will.”

“I will try,” Leitos said doubtfully.

Ba’Sel gave him an encouraging nod, then waded toward the eastern shore. Leitos waited to see if Ba’Sel would look back, but he never did. Once on shore, he vanished into the forest. Another howl convinced Leitos it was time to leave.

Swimming the river proved far easier than walking, and floating along easier still. And as long as he was moving, harnessing his fear, as Ba’Sel had suggested, did not seem so hard. While he was not exactly sure what that meant, or how to do it, every time a horn shrilled through the forest, or a howl sent birds winging toward the sky, he found that his tired arms gained enough strength to keep propelling him downstream.

When the sun hovered directly overhead, Leitos realized that the sounds of pursuit had stopped. He tried to remember if they had ceased all at once, or gradually fallen behind, and decided on the latter. Stroking along and drawing deep, even breaths, he looked for Ba’Sel, but saw only trees overhanging the rippling blue-green river, its surface dancing with sunlight. He could almost imagine there was no danger.

Ba’Sel gave Leitos a start when he materialized on the riverbank up ahead. He looked around, spotted Leitos, then slipped into the water. When he was close, he motioned for Leitos to swim toward the opposite shore.

“The wolves are busy hunting ghosts for their Alon’mahk’lar brothers,” Ba’Sel said with a broad grin, “but as they are not strictly Alon’mahk’lar , they are more cunning beasts than the slavemasters you faced in the mines.”

“What do you mean the wolves are not Alon’mahk’lar ?” Leitos asked in confusion.

“What they are is of no matter, at the moment,” Ba’Sel said, leading them on.

After climbing back onto dry land, they trotted themselves dry, heading south and west until late in the day, climbing one hill after another. The forest of cool shade and dappled sunlight thinned to groves, separated by wide fields of sparse grass and jutting rock.

Having come to appreciate the cover provided by the forest, being exposed left Leitos continually glancing in all directions. In doing so, he found that the forest was only a thin green band, perhaps a league wide, following the river near the base of the Mountains of Fire. Beyond that, the desert began to impose itself again.

By dusk, the rugged hills had become sandstone plateaus. It was a familiar landscape, but Leitos felt no love for it. Neither did he want to run any farther. He struggled to remember a time when he had not been running and hiding.

Ba’Sel paused amid a patch of dusty green sagebrush, plucked a handful of foliage, and vigorously rubbed it on the soles of his boots, instructing Leitos to do the same. “Wolves can track far better than their predecessors-those you would know as slavemasters. But with a little help,” he said, holding up the ruined bit of sage, “we will become just another stinking weed in their noses. Come, we still have many miles to travel before we can rest.”