James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

Adham had many stories about fighting the Faceless One’s dread armies, and how the Alon’mahk’lar victors made a point of separating captured men from the women, boys from the girls. They were stories of valor and hardship, but Leitos had only ever gleaned that those who resisted suffered and died, miserable and broken.

In that light, the future Leitos faced seemed to grow more dangerous. The whole of his existence had been spent digging into the desert for a season or two, then moving a short distance away to dig again, always clawing into the earth, searching for something that the Alon’mahk’lar never disclosed. Most slaves believed they toiled only to toil. Adham had been convinced they were looking for something, though he knew not what. Hunger and thirst, dust and rock, blisters and blinding sunlight, were all that Leitos knew. Freedom had ever been his grandfather’s dream, but to Leitos the same had been an idea shunned at all costs. Freedom, even the attempt of it, meant death. Now, he must embrace his grandfather’s will as his own. Leitos was prepared to try, but worried he would fail.

Grow strong and cruel, and avenge the blood of our forefathers, he heard Adham say again. Leitos knew he must survive in order to avenge his grandfather and his people.

Setting aside all other considerations, save putting distance between himself and the Alon’mahk’lar , he searched the stars until he found the Turtle , then looked farther south until making out the setting Archer . Keeping the Archer on his left side, he headed on a westerly course, careful to remain quiet and low to the ground. He still held doubts that his efforts would yield anything of worth for his people, but for Adham’s sake, he would at least fight to escape his masters.

Masters , he thought, a frown pinching his brow. For the first time, that word held not fearful reverence for the Alon’mahk’lar , but derision. And for the first time, he dared to hate them.

He had no sooner thought that than the resonant wail of a horn shattered the night’s stillness. Leitos did not have to look around to know they had found his trail. From the east another horn sounded, telling him that there was not one hunting party, but two!

Leitos abandoned skulking and ran.

After the wails of Alon’mahk’lar horns, Leitos heard only his feet hammering against the desert and the soft rush of wind in his ears. Fright made him blessedly unaware of the pain in his torn feet, or the stiffness of his water-starved muscles. Despite the blessed lack of feeling, he was well aware that his limbs were not working properly, nor were his lungs. At best, his pace was half what it had been when he fled the slaughter at the mines.

Like the baying of demonic hounds, the horns split the night, closer than before. Leitos found the two bands of Alon’mahk’lar converging into one hunting party behind him, their shadowed forms and silvery eyes bobbing in time with their great strides. While they could not see or smell any better than men, they were fair trackers, and tireless besides, able to run twice the speed of a man, and ten times as far. They would catch him in no time.

Leitos winced every time his toes kicked loose a rock, or his legs thrashed through night-shrouded bush. Commonsense told him these things did not matter, because his feet were doubtless leaving telltale marks in the sand at every step. His only friend this night was the darkness, but his flagging strength all but destroyed that advantage.

The call of a third horn, this one farther off to the north than the two bands at his back, told him there were three hunting groups. With his mind working far more effectively than his body, Leitos deduced that there could be up to two dozen slavemasters after him. He had never known so many Alon’mahk’lar to go after a single slave. For the barest moment, he thought it possible that some of his fellows had made it farther than he had believed. Just as quickly, he dismissed that idea. He had seen them fall, one by one, many miles back. And in the openness of the desert, he would have noticed if others were about.

It does not matter! he thought forcefully, ducking his head and willing his arms and legs to pump faster. While not as speedily as he wished, his feet began to fall in a surer, steadier rhythm, and his great gulping breaths managed to keep the fire in his lungs from becoming a debilitating inferno.

The edge of a jutting rock caught his foot caught and sent him soaring. He plowed through sand and gravel, scraping away layers of skin from his knees and palms. Leitos gritted his teeth against crying out, and lurched to his feet in a bid to run, only to stumble and fall flat. He sprawled facedown, fingertips digging grooves through the coarse soil, his whimpery breaths puffing dust into his nose and eyes. The horns sounded again.

“Damn you!” Leitos screamed, relishing the explosion of hate and fury in his breast, uncaring that he had pinpointed himself to his enemies. He wanted them to find him, so that he might punish them for making him afraid, destroy them for hounding him to such extremes.

As if mocking the futility of his desires, the horns wailed again. All the enraged heat coursing through Leitos’s veins went to ice. Fool! he cursed himself.

Continuing to berate himself, he pushed himself to his bloody knees, then to his feet. He stood swaying, wanting more than anything to crawl into a deep, dark hole until the Alon’mahk’lar moved away. But there was no such shelter, at least none he was likely to find. Instead, he searched for and found the slavemasters. Their feet pounded the ground, and their eyes formed a broken line of winking lights. They were gaining ground at a shocking pace, and their silvery stares bored through the darkness to find him.

I will not surrender, he thought, gritting his teeth.

He found the Archer again, then locked his eyes on the brightest star he could find above the horizon, using it to guide his shambling trot.

All before him blurred together, save that glowing beacon in the heavens, and he forced himself to disregard the crying horns. In this enthralled state, he did not at first notice that his feet no longer thumped against pebbly soil, but rather slapped against sandstone. Only when a rising cliff forced him to halt, did he come fully back to himself.

Despite the gloom, he could tell it stretched miles in both directions, and rose up no less than twenty paces. The top edge climbed, fell, and climbed again, like the spine of a great beast. He had seen the ridge of stone the day before. He wished he had remembered it before he took flight from his makeshift den, for he might have gone in another direction. Now he was trapped.

Am I? he wondered, brushing his fingers over the surface. It seemed the wall of rock was smooth, but on closer inspection, he found that it looked as if mud had been poured out to bake under the sun, then more was poured over the first layer, then more, slowly building up hundreds of thin sheets….

He reached up, wedged his fingers between two layers of stone, then pulled himself up enough to drive his toes into another seam. He began to climb, his muscles weak and shivery. Still, the ascent was far easier than he would have imagined. His life in the mines had made his grip firm, and the skin of his fingers tough as leather. And despite the abuse the soles of his feet had taken since his escape, the tips of his toes were in better shape, and they clung to the layered stone like a second set of fingers.

Over several paces he climbed, then the cliff arched over the top of him like a frozen wave, halting him. He hung there, breathing deeply but calmly, searching for another way. Finding what he needed, he moved off to his right and came to an area pocked with dozens of deep pockets. Some, he was surprised to find, were filled with empty bird nests made of dried, crumbly mud and feathers.