Breath of Heaven, page 19
It took long moments to catch the head shaman’s attention, even more to meet at the back the battle.
“What is it, Corranu?”
“We have to bring down the dome.”
Peyo drew a deep breath as if to protest, but then his gaze traveled over the battle. The hand not holding his scepter tugged at the fringes of his beard. Feathers and beads jounced, clicking and clattering together. “You’re right. It would normally need to be agreed upon at a Gathering, taken care of by the Archon and the Cochen.”
“We don’t have time.”
Peyo pursed his lips. “We will be remembered as those who lost the Sacred Waters, those who destroyed it.”
“We will be remembered as those who kept it from the Shadow Army, from the elloktu and the urannen. If we are remembered at all.”
Neither one of them voiced what they both knew wwould happen: the dwarren within the dome would die. There would be no chance to escape.
But the Shadow Army would die with them.
“We’ll need two teams—”
“No, four. Two to head north and start working on the supports in both directions, and two east and west, heading south. It’s the fastest way to bring it down without sending teams to every support. And we shouldn’t need to crack them all. It will fall before they’re done.”
“Agreed.”
They both turned, Peyo toward the Keepers and Corranu to the back of the Riders still attempting to keep the Shadow Army at bay. The initial push to the south had been halted, but they’d lost ground on a third of that part of the chamber, with more of the Shadow Army pouring in. The terren, kell, and gruen were making steady progress at the eastern tunnel.
Corranu grabbed five Riders for each team, dragging them away from the fighting. Peyo chose four of the shamans, one for each of the Four Rivers. When Corranu explained their task, the entire group was stunned into silence.
Then Peyo stepped forward, raised his scepter, and blessed the groups, using one of the most sacred verses, riddled with protections. When he finished, his voice cracked. “Now go. Go, and may Ilacqua watch you with hawk’s eyes and protect you with its talons.”
They watched the groups split off, heading north, east, and west, behind the dwarren ranks, circling the red pulse of the Sacred Waters.
“It is done.”
“Yes,” Corranu said, straightening. “Now we give them the time needed to finish their task.”
* * *
“Archon, to your left!”
Quotl spun, hands already slick with the blood of the kell that had swarmed from the main tunnel ahead of them as they’d raced toward the Sacred Waters. They’d continued the charge without slowing, trampling the twisted black creatures in the front. But even the gaezel couldn’t keep the momentum going as the gruen joined the kell in the attack and the passage became jammed with the denizens of the Shadow Army.
One of the gruen leaped from the shoulder of a dead Rider to the wall, then launched toward Quotl, claws extended. Quotl swung his scepter, cutting off the creature’s sibilant hiss in mid-arch. The bone-crunch shuddered through the wood and into Quotl’s fingers and he grunted in satisfaction, then twisted around in his saddle. Twenty paces away, the Cochen and his clan pushed forward through the Shadow Army, leaving broken bodies and slick blood-smears behind, but the progress was slow. They were still a thousand paces from the main entrance.
He knew from the scrying that the Shadow Army was attacking from the west as well. They needed to get into the main chamber. They’d never get a foothold here.
“Azuka!” He pulled back even as he crushed a kell’s skull and kicked another gruen from a fellow Rider’s mount. The shrieks and death-cries drowned out his voice in the close tunnel, so he reached forward and grabbed Azuka’s shoulder, his fellow shaman nearly braining him as he turned to attack. The younger shaman looked horrified as his scepter glanced off of Quotl’s shoulder instead, but Quotl merely tightened his grip and pulled Azuka closer so he could shout into his ear.
“We won’t be able to break through here! We need to use some of the secondary corridors!”
They began pulling back, seizing some of the Riders who were doing nothing in the rear. Most hesitated, until they saw Quotl leading them.
They charged down the passage, passed the gruen-slashed bodies of the sappers who’d been in charge of collapsing the tunnels, and hit the first cross corridor. Quotl motioned left, then led the way forward, reaching the first branch and turning again.
He tasted dust and dirt before he realized the corridor ahead had been plunged into darkness, the oil sconces that usually lit the tunnels gone. A moment later, he ran into the outer debris and then the solid wall of collapsed rock and he cursed.
“Back. Try the Gaezel’s Run and the Little River. Check all of the branches for one that’s not blocked.”
As the group split, he realized they’d brought more than just a hundred Riders with them. A full two hundred had followed behind, and they were led by Kimannen.
He scowled as he saw the former Archon, slowed as the Riders streamed past.
“Archon.”
“We don’t have time for this, Kimannen. Why did you follow? Do you hope to supplant me if I die? Searching for the opportunity to kill me yourself?”
“If only Ilacqua were so kind. But no, the gods made it clear in the keeva that you were to be the Archon.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because you were not the only one to receive a vision in the keeva, Quotl. I may not be the Archon, but the gods still have a purpose for me. And I cannot carry that out unless I make it to the Sacred Waters.”
Quotl tried not to let his shock show, but knew his eyebrows had risen. He had never heard of two shamans receiving different visions while within the keeva, especially during one of such import.
His shock slid into doubt. “What is this purpose the gods have given you?”
“To save the dwarren race.” It was said without Kimmanen’s usual arrogance and self-importance.
Before he could come up with a response, he heard shouts from one of the corridors and a Rider appeared.
“They’ve found an unblocked tunnel,” Kimannen said, then kicked his gaezel into motion.
Quotl followed suit.
As they rode, the Riders surrounded them, so that they burst from the secondary tunnel into the southeastern part of the main chamber as one group.
Quotl’s gaze took in the mass of dwarren fending off the Shadow Army at the two main corridors, the terren plowing forward into their ranks. A dull throb of power coursed through the army from the shamans who wielded the scepters, with the much deeper and distinct surges of the Sacred Waters and the Summer Tree to the north. The Keepers had erected a wall of protection around the Summer Tree using its remnant strength, so diminished from what it had been after the Shadowed One had thrust its seed into the stone of the chamber so many years before, when Quotl was merely a child.
But it was still significant. That power seized hold of Quotl and pulled him in. In the space between breaths, the entire dome slid into sudden heightened focus, as the battlefield at the Break had done. The air shuddered with the cries of the dead, with the echoes of the dying and the movements of those still alive. Invisible eddies coursed around and through him, outlining the darkness of the Shadow Army, giving its name deeper meaning. Others lit the Summer Tree and its shield in brilliant colors, gave the reddish light of the Sacred Waters a new pulsing depth.
He caught Azuka’s attention as the group ground to an uncertain halt. “Take a few Riders and report back to the Cochen. Tell him of the open tunnel.”
Azuka nodded and took off, trailed by his escort. Quotl turned back to the others, caught Kimannen watching him intently, realized that the other Riders were doing the same. He knew he’d taken on the aspects of Ilacqua’s touch, what Azuka had called a glow at the Break. He heard the throb of it in his voice.
Irritated, he asked Kimannen, “Do you see your purpose yet?”
“Not yet. But your purpose is to give them hope.” He pointed his chin toward the faltering Painted Sands forces. “They need to see that their Archon has arrived.”
Quotl jerked at his gaezel’s horns. “Then we will show them.”
He pulled his gaezel around, raised his scepter, and began chanting, the ancient words flowing from his mouth without thought as he kneed his mount forward, the rest of the Riders falling in around him, raising their own ululating battlecries as they swept down around the Sacred Waters and across the bridges over the two easternmost rivers. Before they’d reached the back of the army, Quotl heard answering cries from behind. The Cochen and his forces had arrived. He watched those ahead turn, saw their despair and desperation transform into determination as they caught sight of him, of the Cochen’s much larger force behind him, and then he swerved to pass along the back of the dwarren army, headed toward the western part of the chamber and the Summer Tree. The dwarren in his wake rallied, surged hard against the Shadow Army, shoved it back with sudden force. He glanced back at an ear-splitting bellow, caught two of the terren tumbling into the raging waters of the Estuar River, their stone-like bodies vanishing beneath its surface. Looking forward again, he focused on the Summer Tree, on the Keepers beneath, and picked out Peyo, angling straight for the head shaman of Painted Sands.
Behind, he felt the approach of the Cochen’s forces. It rippled through the energies that surrounded him, like wind in the grass signaling the approach of a storm front, building and building as it approached, until it slid smoothly into the already gathered dwarren forces and struck the blackness that was the Shadow Army.
Quotl shuddered at the collision, felt the Shadow give.
Then he caught the look of shock and horror on Peyo’s face. It wasn’t the reception he’d expected. He drew back from it automatically, his gaezel picking up on the subtle movement, slowing as they approached.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted over the heightened noise of the battle competing with the roar of the cascading water and rivers.
Peyo gestured frantically at the surrounding walls. “We—we thought you weren’t coming. We thought—”
But a sudden crack of splintering stone reverberated throughout the chamber, snapping Quotl’s attention to the northern part of the dome. The sound cut through the air and trembled up through the stone floor in a teeth- and bone-grating ripple. Quotl clutched at his gaezel’s horns as it instinctively shied away from the noise; other Riders were not so lucky as their mounts bolted.
Quotl paid no attention to them, or to the suspended chaos of the battlefield. Yet he still couldn’t pick out what had changed, what had happened.
Then a chunk of the smooth white stone—dirtied by time and a thousand years of smoke from the dwarren—slid free from one of the supports. A thousand times the weight of Quotl himself, it plummeted to the floor below, and as it fell Quotl noticed the cracks that riddled the rest of the support, from its base all the way to the ceiling overhead.
The chunk of stone struck, splintering into a thousand pieces and cracking the floor north of the Sacred Waters. Quotl felt the concussion on the eddies around him, felt the new flaw in the support as he’d felt the flaw in the stone of the cliffs at the Break. The tremor from the impact broke additional stone from the ceiling, debris raining down onto the northern rock wall of stone and cascading water, clattering down its face.
Quotl turned to Peyo slowly. “What have you done?”
“We sought to protect the Sacred Waters. We meant to collapse the Ancient’s dome.”
Quotl would have staggered if he hadn’t been mounted. “We have to stop it.”
“We sent four teams. Two to the north and one each to the east and west.” He spun, arms gesturing Keepers forward, stumbling over his orders before practically pushing the four shamans toward the tunnels that led below ground, where the supports that held the dome could be broken.
A second splintering crack shivered through the chamber, its report making Quotl cringe, but the battle around him barely reacted. Stone was already falling from a crack-riddled support to the east.
“You should have waited!” Quotl snapped, turning back to Peyo. “You should have had faith!”
Peyo’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came forth.
Then the guilt-stricken shaman’s gaze suddenly shifted, away from Quotl, centered on something to the east. His brow furrowed in confusion.
Without turning, Quotl knew why. Their presence caused a ripple on the eddies of power around him, another darkness like that cast by the Shadow Army, but this one much smaller, nearly lost in the tumult. He thought suddenly of the char scattered across the map at his last seeing, at the smear of it that had caught his attention to the east, so insignificant he’d dismissed it.
He felt something else as well, something buried in the darkness: a heart that beat with a faint pulse, yet promised a power of much greater potential if it were unlocked.
He yanked his gaezel around, eyes locking on the small force of skittering gruen as they scampered across the now debris-riddled floor. Those in the center carried what looked like a satchel, held high above them. They moved fast and were utterly silent.
And they were headed directly toward the Sacred Waters.
* * *
Kimannen remained calm until the first support cracked.
He watched Quotl lead his advance group of Riders—and moments later, the Cochen’s forces as well—into the fight already going on at the two main entrances.
He should have led that charge. As Archon, he would have donned the official headdress that Quotl had left behind and ridden directly into the fighting. It would have given the Riders hope, the symbolism of the Archon—and thus Ilacqua—riding into battle beside them, bolstering their courage and eradicating their fears. It would have had meaning.
The five Riders he’d commanded to stay with him, all from Kimannen’s own Claw Lake clan, shifted nervously. Their desire to join the battle was obvious, but his voice still carried weight, even if he wasn’t the Archon.
And the gods had spoken. Ilacqua had a higher purpose for Kimannen. One that transcended becoming the Archon and leading the People of the Land. One that had taken him days to accept and come to terms with, even though it would be the ultimate achievement. It would make him a legend and would be spoken of for generations to come.
Quotl would never be able to surpass it.
Then the first support cracked.
Kimannen nearly fell from his seat, managing to catch himself with one hand on the gaezel’s horns while keeping hold of his scepter. One of the Riders helped him upright while the others surrounded him protectively. He slapped the Rider’s supportive hands aside as soon as he regained his balance, then froze in shock as the chunk of the support broke free and fell. When it hit, causing more of the support—and part of the ceiling—to fall, he pushed his gaezel forward through the Riders protecting him.
“Fools. They’re all fools.”
The urge to rush forward, to seize control, suffused him, so intense a compulsion that he’d grabbed his gaezel’s horns and tightened his knees before he caught himself. The gaezel tensed in anticipation, but he forced himself to relax, pried his fingers free with effort. The vision had been clear.
A darkness was coming, here, to the Sacred Waters, slipping with stealth and cunning around the dwarren army, hiding in the shadows, waiting for the moment when the dwarren were distracted by the Shadow Army and the battle. According to the vision, it would bring destruction of a magnitude that the dwarren had never seen before, that the dwarren would not survive.
And the gods had chosen Kimannen to stop it.
But the vision hadn’t been clearer than that. Everything had been blurred, feverish, distorted as if seen through deep, cloudy water. He’d seen the blood-red glow of the Sacred Waters, heard the screams of the dying and the clash of battle, and felt a dull, menacing, heart-throb of power pulsing over it all. That overriding malice had come from an ink-spill of oil beneath the water, streaming toward the glow of the Sacred Waters, a pin-prick of cold blue light at its center, and when it reached the Sacred Waters, the Meeting of the Rivers, the Heart of the Land—
The vision had roared, deafened him with a rumble of thunder a thousand times louder than even the vicious, unnatural storms that once again riddled the plains. Purplish lightning had stabbed forth from the Sacred Waters, blinding him. He’d lurched up from the ledge in the keeva, gasped at the intense heat of the fire, the dense scent of the yetope leaves’ smoke, and found Quotl writhing on the floor, hand clutched to his chest, body wracked with tremors...
The second support snapped, this time closer to Kimannen’s position, yanking him from the thoughts of the vision that had tortured him since his time in the keeva. His escort of Riders shouted warning and herded him back from the edge of the debris field as more stone tumbled from the ceiling. Kimannen allowed it without protest, confused. He’d sensed nothing like this in the vision, heard nothing like splintering stone.
Then one of the Riders shouted, “Look!” and pointed with his drawn short sword.
Kimannen followed his sword, and the doubt and confusion fled.
A group of the cat-like gruen with glowing lantern eyes flowed across the central chamber like a spill of ink, moving directly toward the Sacred Waters. Kimannen hadn’t seen where they’d come from, but they carried something on their backs, a satchel of some sort.
Kimannen stiffened in his seat, the gaezel beneath him snorting and stamping one foot.
“We have to stop them before they reach the Sacred Waters.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He kicked hard into the gaezel’s sides, leaned forward between its horns for balance as it hunched back, muscles bunched, then leaped, cutting toward the reddish glow of the central pool of water, angling to intercept the gruen. Kimannen barely registered the ululating cry of the escorting Riders, finally allowed to release their pent-up battle lust. His entire being centered on the gruen, on the satchel. He sank into the gaezel’s fleet movement, slid into its rhythm as it dodged the chunks of fallen debris. The shattering of a third support of the dome overhead registered as a dull crump in the sudden pounding of his own blood in his ears. The gruen were thirty paces from the Sacred Waters... fifteen…ten...
