Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

“What about her?” Bobby said, indicating Feor. The Khandarai girl wore a hooded brown robe, but she was still attracting odd looks from the soldiers they passed.

“She’s-got information we might need,” Winter said. “I’ll explain things to the colonel.”

“But-”

“No more objections, Corporal.”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

The little town was much as Bobby had described it. The colonel had ordered it searched, but there wasn’t really much to search. She saw a few men examining the household items and furnishings that had been left behind, following the time-honored soldiers’ tradition that anything you could carry off from an enemy camp was fair game, but there wasn’t much to loot, either. At least there was water. They passed the cistern, which was at one end of a never-ending bucket chain of sweating men struggling to refill the casks of the regiment and water its thirsty animals.

Bobby had reluctantly pointed out where they were headed, a section of the cliff face at the back of the village that boasted a stretch of ancient carvings. A doorway gaped in the sand-colored wall like a missing tooth, flanked by small mounds of broken stone and smashed wood. A faint smell of gunsmoke hung in the still desert air.

Winter paused just outside, uncertain. The sun was well up by now, and the shadow of the cliff was starting to creep away from the face and down toward the town. After a dozen feet, the tunnel was completely black. Winter glanced at Feor, who had pushed back the hood on her robe and was looking at the carvings with interest.

“Do you know this place?” Winter said.

Feor shook her head. “It is a temple, a very old one. But Mother and the Desoltai have never been on good terms, and they did not share their secrets easily. It took the arrival of you Vordanai and the beginning of the Redemption to bring them together.”

“Do you think they’re inside?”

“Yes,” Feor said. “I can feel them.” Her expression turned uncertain. “Something else as well.”

“Sir,” Bobby said, “something’s wrong here.”

“How so?”

“The colonel warned everyone off from this place.”

“So you said.”

Bobby frowned. “Don’t you think he would have left a couple of guards outside?”

That made Winter pause. She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Maybe they’re farther in?”

“Could be,” Bobby said.

“Come on,” Winter said. “Let’s find the others.”

• • •

Winter edged forward, one hand feeling ahead along the dry stone wall. The entrance was a square of brilliant daylight behind them, slipping slowly out of view as the tunnel curved into the cliff face. There was some kind of light ahead, something that flickered like an open flame. Just as they’d entered there had been a resounding crack , and a rumble like faraway thunder.

“Was that a shot?” Bobby said.

Winter pursed her lips. It was hard to say-the stone made everything echo oddly and changed the timbre of familiar sounds. She kept edging forward, step by careful step. Another crack , accompanied by a distant flash, brought her up short.

“That was definitely a shot,” Bobby said. “Who the hell are they shooting at?”

They started moving faster. Light gradually started to filter in, a weird, flickering brilliance. It was the red glow of a fire, Winter was sure, shot through now and again by the brighter yellow-white of a muzzle flash. It was enough to make out the bare outline of things, which narrowly prevented Winter from tripping over the first dead man.

She threw out an arm to bring Bobby to a halt. The tunnel ahead of them was strewn with corpses, a dozen or more, all lying flat or sitting against the walls in attitudes that suggested they’d been propped there like puppets. It was impossible to make out any detail in the firelight, and Winter dug hastily in her pocket for a box of matches.

“Are those-,” Bobby said.

Winter struck the match on the tunnel wall. The flickering firelight from up ahead made colors difficult to distinguish, but in the steadier light of the match she recognized the brown-and-tan uniform of the Khandarai Auxiliaries. Bobby let out a long breath of relief.

“What are they doing here?” Winter muttered, half to herself.

“Could Khtoba have followed us across the desert?” Bobby said.

“Or we followed him.” Winter looked back at Feor, who was looking down at the bodies with a puzzled expression. “Are you all right?”

“There’s no blood,” Feor said.

None of the corpses were visibly marked. Winter frowned.

Bobby was already pressing ahead. Feor threaded her way past the Auxiliaries to join her, and Winter followed slowly. Beside the last of the corpses, she paused.

“If they’re fighting. .,” Bobby said in low tones.

“Just a moment.”

Winter prodded the facedown man with her boot. He was an officer, judging by the braid on his shoulders and the scabbard at his belt. The corpse rocked slightly when she touched it, and after a moment of hesitation she got down, grabbed his shoulder, and rolled him onto his back. There was no wound on his front, either. The elaborately decorated Auxiliary uniform was unmarred.

Something hissed . She watched, fascinated, as a thin wisp of white smoke trickled from the body’s slightly parted lips and wafted toward the ceiling.

“Sifatz,” Feor said, then repeated it in her half-learned Vordanai. “Run!”

“Wh-”

The corpse’s eyes snapped open. They were green from edge to edge and glowed with an inner light that threw Winter’s shadow wide across the tunnel ceiling. Its hands came up and locked around her wrist, dragging her off balance. She gave an undignified squeal as she fell across the corpse, her left side lighting up with pain. As she fell, the thing shifted its grip, wrapping its arms around her waist in a horrid parody of an embrace. Its mouth opened wide, releasing a gush of white smoke that played across her face and filled her nostrils with a scent like burning sugar.

With sudden horror she realized it was going to bite her, rip her throat out like some kind of beast. One of her arms was stuck by her side, but she just barely managed to bring the other up in time, slamming her forearm under its chin and forcing its jaw closed with a clack of teeth. She brought her knee up as hard as she could, almost automatically, but it didn’t even flinch at the blow to its groin. Its arms merely tightened their grip, holding her as close as a lover. Their faces were inches apart. Winter could see the faint stubble where the man hadn’t shaved properly, and the green of his eyes bored into her.

Her left hand groped for purchase and found the handle of the corpse’s sword. She didn’t have the leverage to draw it, though, and the strength of the creature’s arms seemed endless. Her breath came in tiny gasps, and her lungs were starting to burn. She arched her back desperately, trying to break free, but only managed to loosen her grip on the corpse’s throat. It bared its teeth again, bathed in white smoke, and tried to force them closer to her face.

Winter gaped, desperate to draw a breath, but the grip around her shoulders pressed her chest too tight. It felt as though her spine was about to snap. Her lungs were on fire. She felt her legs kicking it, distantly, but for all the good it did she might have been pounding on a wall.

Then, all at once, something gave way. One of the creature’s arms pulled free, giving Winter a moment to hurl herself away from it with all the strength she could muster. She felt its nails leave long scratches down her back, even through the fabric of her uniform, but it didn’t manage to get a grip before she was clear and rolling sideways. She cannoned almost immediately into Feor, who was holding on to one of the monster’s wrists with both hands. Winter and the Khandarai girl went down in a heap, accompanied by a metallic clatter.