Ричард Кнаак - The Veiled Prophet

“Rathma did warn that his father would move behind events, turning them to his favor,” the younger one reminded.

Uldyssian glared at Mendeln, although he was not angry at all at his sibling for bringing that up again. Instead, he was furious at himself for underestimating just how cunning and how thorough Inarius could be.

“The angel’s turning everyone against us, isn’t he, Mendeln? Wherever we’ve fought, his ‘missionaries’ have arrived afterward, tending to the wounded, feeding the hungry, and filling their heads with images of our evil!”

“Although we have tried, our hands are not completely clean. Inarius has no doubt magnified those regretful moments until they are all the survivors see.”

Uldyssian let loose with an oath. There was no denying what Mendeln said. Uldyssian had thought that he had at least left Toraja and the other locations with an understanding of the truth concerning the Triune and the Cathedral. He had not expected those who had remained behind to think of him and his followers with love, but certainly there would be respect of some sort.

But human nature, he realized, ever veered on the side of suspicion, suspicion the Prophet’s servants had fed well.

A great burning swelled within him. It erupted so fast and so furiously that it overwhelmed Uldyssian’s good sense. He saw how foolish he had been to think that Inarius would let him guide events. Why would the angel grant a mortal foe that? With one cunning move, Inarius had already nearly won the battle. To be able to arouse ordinary folk to such determined anger that they would be willing to march through harsh jungle in order to fight what they knew would be powerful foes was a strength that dismayed Uldyssian.

The burning grew more intense. Uldyssian could not hold it back any longer.

He stared at the corpses.

Mendeln leapt out of his way just in time. Fire exploded around the bodies, reducing them to cinder in mere seconds. The flames rose high, eating at the nearest trees. The area quickly became an inferno, fueled by Uldyssian’s frustration.

The woman’s shade dissipated with a mournful wail. Someone seized Uldyssian’s sleeve, but it took him a moment to register both his brother and the fact that Mendeln was shouting in his ear.

“You must stop it, Uldyssian! Stop it before you set the entire jungle ablaze!”

But he did not want to stop it, for the more the flames engulfed his surroundings, the better he felt. With some contempt, he shook Mendeln off.

Then something harsh struck his chest, and a new agony overwhelmed him. Uldyssian gazed down and saw that there was an arrow buried deep. His mind fleetingly noted that it was not just any arrow but one of a make familiar to him.

It was also an arrow encrusted with dirt.

Uldyssian toppled.

The assassin leapt through the thick jungle underbrush with a grace worthy of the swiftest predators. Even before he had fired, he had been on the move. It was not as if he sought to keep his anonymity. They would know him well enough, if only because of the arrow and the dirt upon it.

Achilios ran. Not because he wanted to but because it was demanded of him. He had fired, as he had been commanded, but that was not the end of it. Not in the least.

There was still Serenthia…

With his smooth, hawklike features, he had been considered a handsome man back in the days when that was something that seemed to matter. Blond and wiry as a good hunter needed to be, with the swiftness to match, Achilios had been desired by many a young woman around the village of Seram. He, though, only had eyes for one. Back then, it had seemed to him such a tragic thing that Serenthia had wanted not him but rather Uldyssian.

Death had changed much of his perspective.

He paused to listen, one moon-white hand planted against the nearest tree to give him support. When no sound of pursuit arose, Achilios fell to human habit and rubbed his chin in thought. That caused him to gaze with eyes that saw no difference between day and night at the particles of dirt that covered the skin on the back of his hand.

In a sudden fury, he dropped his bow and rubbed at the dirt. Even though he felt it brush off, the hand grew no cleaner, just like the one with which he rubbed. Achilios did not have to see his face to know that it was the same. His entire body, even his green and brown hunter’s garb, was grimy, almost as if he had freshly dug himself out of his grave. No matter how much he cleaned himself, there were always more particles, more bits of ground.

And now, worse, it was not only his flesh that he sought to clean but his conscience, too.

He had just shot his dearest friend, and although it had not been his intention to do it, that made it no less terrible a sin. Another had commanded, but Achilios had not found the wherewithal to refuse. He had bided his time, taken his aim, and, despite his mind screaming for him not to fire or to miss, Achilios had obeyed his master.

Retrieving his bow, the archer glanced back again. Whether the illumination he saw was from the fire Uldyssian had created in his rage or was simply from the encampment did not matter. If he could still see either, then he was too close. He had to continue his flight.

But where am I running to? Where?

He had only one answer to that, an answer he dreaded even to consider. Achilios was to run until there was no chance of being discovered. No farther. It had been commanded that he remain near but not too near. After all, Serenthia was next. Next…

Stricken by that horrifying thought, the hunter tried to let out a cry, but no sound came. Of course, that had nothing to do whatsoever with the gaping, crusted hole where his throat had once been. The magic that had animated him had given him voice, too, but that voice had been stolen, at least for this moment, by the one who now had utter mastery over him.

Thus, with no other choice left to him, Achilios continued to run. His pace would have exhausted to death the most powerful buck or horse, but, needing not to breathe, it was easy for him to keep up the grueling trek. Achilios dodged trees, slipped through narrow passages, and leapt over fallen trunks with an ease he had not had even in life.

And yet he could not feel even the slightest breeze. Even that small relief was forbidden him.

Then, without warning, the hunter stopped. It was not by his choice, and the abruptness of it nearly made Achilios lose his footing. He knew, though, what the extreme halt meant. He was now at the end of his invisible tether. All Achilios had to do to verify that was to look back and see that the glow was gone from view.

One thing that death had not forbidden him was a good, strong epithet. Now that he was far away and thus free to be vocal again, Achilios swore vehemently. The sound would not carry to anyone back near Uldyssian—or likely be heard by anything at all but a few animals—but it was one of the few things that made him feel almost alive.

But barely had he gotten the words out before a brilliant light of an unnatural blue appeared before him. Achilios swore again. He tried to notch an arrow, knowing all the while that the shaft would do no good.

A figure appeared in the midst of the light, a figure with wings that were tendrils of energy and who wore a silver-blue breastplate. The rest remained indistinct.

“I’ve done…your…your foul deed…” the hunter rasped. “Let me die now…”

COME…commanded the ethereal form, gesturing with one gauntleted hand.

“I did your damned work!” Achilios insisted. He held up the bow and the notched arrow. “I used these to slay my best friend—my brother in all but blood.” The archer laughed harshly. “Blood…now he’s all in blood…”

But the winged figure did not show any sympathy. Achilios’s despair finally drove him to aim and fire. The arrow soared exactly where he desired it, just above the breastplate where the throat would be.