Mark of Fire (The Endarian Prophecy Book 1) Page 7

  Arn was twenty-seven, just over six feet tall, slender, and lithe. He kept his curly hair short—easier to take care of that way. He kept a dagger strapped to each thigh; the handles of two others protruded from sheaths in his boots. But the much larger knife that hung in a thick leather scabbard on his left hip was what drew the eye. The weapon had a black bone handle ornately decorated with intricate carvings, its wide blade extending a foot in length and angling to a sharp point.

  Arn moved silently across the loose rock and shale, his long stride rapidly carrying him toward the next crest in the slope. There he paused, withdrawing the big knife that he had named Slaken from its sheath.

  Slaken was his one magical possession, its very existence as ironic as his own. The dull black blade, darker than a starless night, absorbed light rays, leaching them into the handle. There they warped and twisted, dancing along the strange runes carved into its surface. The effect was fluid, as if light flowed along the narrow channels the script cut into the weapon’s landscape.

  Overcome with gratitude that Arn had saved the life of his only son, Rodan had granted him the right to have any one thing the king could give. What Arn had asked for had taken Gregor and the king’s chief armorer five years to make: the black blade with the carved handle, a handle with so many magical inscriptions that one blended into the next.

  The blade was so magical that it had no magic. It was magic twisted in upon itself so that one spell blocked another until none worked. In fact, no spell had any effect upon the knife, nor upon the person who had made the blood-bond with the weapon, and only Arn could hold the blade. Slaken gave Arn the one thing he desired most in the world—the ability to operate without the direct interference of wielders.

  Arn blinked, pulling himself out of the sudden trance into which he had fallen. He did not often allow himself to study the knife, as he found the effect it had on his mind disconcerting.

  Right now, on the other side of the ridgeline, something else awaited him, pulling him forward. This had all been in his dimly remembered dreams. Since that moment of shame when he had hidden inside the wood box, too afraid to look to see who had murdered his mother and father, he had felt the almost imperceptible tug of destiny. His feet sensed the path that would eventually lead to the confrontation from which he had shied as a boy. He had no evidence to back this belief; he just needed it to be true. So once again, he would yield to that pull.

  Battle has a smell. Long before the fighting started, adrenaline flooded the bodies of those who awaited its commencement, flushing the pores with sweat, both hot and cold, and in some cases loosing other bodily functions. And those smells drifted out on the breeze, detectable by those who paid attention. As Arn moved through the thick brush near the military crest of the ridge, he smelled the fighting before he saw or heard it. He quickened his pace, gliding through rocks and dense brush.

  Reaching a rocky outcropping that provided a spectacular view of the deep canyon beyond, he stopped. The sound of distant screams and yells drifted up on the breeze, accompanied by the clash of metal on metal.

  Spread out along the narrow canyon floor, at least a hundred vorgs pressed forward, howling in frustration as they tried to climb a fallen tree that formed a ramp into a narrow breach in the towering rock wall that terminated the box canyon. Atop that ledge, a lone shirtless warrior moved, his blond hair swirling around his shoulders as he fought, lost in the dance with his ax. Above him and to the right, a bowman fired down into the vorgs that scrambled upward over the bodies of their fallen pack mates.

  The warrior advanced along the ten-foot section of the wall that held the mighty tree ramp, clearing away vorgs as fast as they could scramble to the top.

  A low moan rose from the vorgs nearing the top of the ramp as the rush of their companions pressed them forward into the whirling, blood-soaked terror that awaited. The moan built in volume until it could be heard from all corners of the canyon.

  For the briefest of moments, Arn paused, engulfed by a memory. He’d seen a battle like this in his dreams, a lone warrior battling along a great ramp atop the walls of a mighty fortress, in a different place, a different time.

  A motion toward the rear of the battle group caught Arn’s eye. An ancient vorg, long fangs curling over his lower lip, pushed his way forward, clutching a staff in his hands. Wielder. Very soon now, the blond barbarian and his friend were going to die.

  Arn moved into a dead run down the steep slope, his feet touching the ground just long enough to push off as the loose shale began to slide beneath them. The vorgs at the rear never saw him coming, so intently did they focus on their trapped quarry. As he moved headlong into the throng, Arn’s hands worked his knives in quick staccato thrusts into backs, kidneys, and throats, motions designed to clear a path forward. As the vorgs fell away before him, the ones behind struggled to react to his passage, their rush impeded by their startled and dying comrades.

  The wielder raised his staff, his voice rising in singsong spell chant. Arn’s black blade opened a new mouth below the sorcerer’s chin as the last syllable turned into a gargle. A mighty rumble erupted from the staff, but the fireball missed its target, crashing into the cliffs high above the rift where the barbarian battled. The force of the explosion shook the canyon floor, stunning the surprised vorgs and causing them to whirl toward their dying wielder.

  Arn did not hesitate, continuing his momentum toward the ramp, although now the crush of vorgs slowed him as they began to realize a new enemy was among them.

  Suddenly a new rumble shook the ground as a rock spire gave way, high on the cliffs above. With a mighty yell, the barbarian atop the tree ramp charged into the confusion, the great ax cutting through the vorgs that blocked Arn’s path. Into the gap Arn raced, running up the ramp toward the rift as rocks rained down.

  Seeing the danger, the barbarian whirled, following Arn back up the ramp. On the ledge above, the archer strummed his bow, dropping the nearest vorgs as they rushed to follow.

  “John!” the barbarian yelled. “Rock fall. Get into the cave.”

  The bowman glanced up and then leapt into the opening, narrowly avoiding a boulder that splintered on the ledge beside him. Arn reached the ledge and raced into the dark opening, feeling the barbarian close on his heels. The assassin did not pause, scrambling deeper into the darkness as the sound of falling rock behind him rose to a deafening rumble.

  The ground lurched, throwing Arn to the cave’s rocky floor. He scrambled forward into absolute blackness, feeling his way as dust clogged his throat. Reaching a point where the ground sloped steeply down, Arn crawled rapidly onward, stopping only when the air began to feel clear.

  Leaning back against the wall, he gulped in great gasps, an effort that brought on a round of violent coughing. The sounds of the other two men coughing nearby were the only other noises heard. The rockslide had apparently stopped and, at least for the moment, the vorgs had not followed them into the cave.

  The barbarian’s voice echoed through the blackness. “Stuck in a damned cave, blind as a bat. Exactly what I was hoping for today.”

  “Quit whining,” the other man responded. “If you’d followed me inside to begin with, we could have gotten away from the vorgs without a fight.”

  “John, I told you. I don’t like caves.”

  Apparently remembering Arn’s presence, John called out. “Stranger, you still alive?”

  “I seem to be,” Arn replied.

  “You’re one crazy fool,” the barbarian said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The barbarian laughed.

  “Do you have a name, stranger?” John asked.

  “My friends call me Arn.”

  “You’ll have to excuse Ty,” John said. “He’s Kanjari. They’re not long on manners. If you hadn’t killed that wielder, things could have gotten ugly.”

  “Well, I’m glad it all came out so well, then.”

  Ty laughed again, the sound echoing away into the darkness. Arn wonde
red whether the barbarian was a bit insane.

  Feeling around in his pack, Arn retrieved his tinderbox and a candle. Within seconds of working the flint and steel, he produced a small flame that he transferred to the wick.

  “You do have your uses,” Ty said, moving into the small circle of light.

  The flickering flame revealed a surreal world in which the cave ceiling crept downward until it was barely six feet above the floor. Beyond that circle, the darkness pressed in like an elemental intent on snuffing out the offending illumination.

  A thick coat of dust gave the men the look of savages, readying themselves for some arcane ritual. Arn stared at the Kanjari. He had only seen one other at a carnival when he was ten. The Kanjari were nomadic horse warriors, their love of fighting surpassed only by their love of horses and wide-open spaces. Although generally frowned upon by their people, some Kanjari loved showing off their skills and joined traveling carnivals.

  At six and a half feet tall, Ty looked like the god of war. His ax was unique, with beautiful carvings of running horses adorning its ivory handle, their blowing manes visible through a sheen of blood. The blade formed an arc like a crescent moon and jutted out from the haft. Etched into the blade’s flat sides, a majestic stallion pawed the air, eyes rolling wildly, ears laid back along its head.

  John stood two inches shorter than Arn. His raven-black hair hung down to his shoulders and a beaklike nose gave the impression of a hawk. But it was the man’s eyes that held Arn’s attention, their irises as black as their pupils, twin pools of darkness.

  “We better move on,” said John, who Arn had immediately pegged as the most sensible of the pair. “I grew up in this area, and I’ve been through all these caves. This one has another way out.”

  “No,” said Ty. “You’re not dragging me deeper into this thing.”

  “Look,” said John, “even if the entryway isn’t blocked, there are a whole bunch of angry vorgs waiting out there to welcome us back. They’re probably already searching for a way in. Our only real chance is to use the back door. It’s a bit hard to get to, but I’ve done it before.”

  Arn rose to his feet. “Makes sense.”

  “Listen,” said Ty. “Why do you think I hate caves? It’s because I followed him into one before. If he says this one’s a little hard, then it’s damnation.”

  “I’m not seeing a lot of choices.”

  The barbarian remained silent for a moment, and then shrugged. “Just remember what I said.”

  Arn and Ty scrambled down the slope behind John into the crevice beyond, a crack just wide enough to squeeze through. After about three feet, the entire nature of the cavern changed. The passage allowed just enough room for them to crawl forward on hands and knees, but it was much wider than the light of the candle could show.

  The experience felt like being sandwiched between two gigantic slices of rock-hard bread, except here the stone surfaces glittered with kaleidoscopic reflections. Tiny stalactites and stalagmites covered the ceiling and floor, like icicles sparkling in the candlelight. The flickering flame sent showers of shimmering lights cascading off the nearest little spears, while sparkles glinted from the floor and ceiling farther along.

  The sight dazzled Arn. Everywhere he looked, strange colors danced back and forth, always changing, never repeating a previous pattern, the uncanny beauty of chaos.

  While the icicles were mesmerizing, they were hard on the hands, knees, and back. Soon Arn and Ty were cut and bleeding from scores of tiny wounds. Every few feet resulted in one of the men bumping his head, catching his back, or firmly planting his shin on one of the sharp objects, which brought forth a steady stream of curses from Ty.

  “I knew that son-of-a-vorg would get us into something like this,” Ty muttered from somewhere behind Arn.

  Meanwhile, Arn was doing his best just to keep John in sight. At last the trio came to a point where the roof of the cave moved up to about five feet, allowing them to sit and rest. Leaning back, Arn rummaged through his pack and extracted three strips of jerky, handing one to each of his companions. Together, in the damp stillness of the underworld, they enjoyed a less than hearty lunch, washing the meat down with a swallow of water.

  “You’ll need to take off that pack now,” John said to Arn. “It gets a little tough from here on out.”

  “I thought we were already through the hard part!” Ty yelled. “Give me that pack, Arn. I’ll push it in front of me. You just stay close to John with that candle. If he gets us stuck down in here, I want you to burn his stinkin’ toes off before we die.”

  Arn grinned, starting to take to the Kanjari’s madness. Handing his pack to Ty, he scrambled into the small opening where John had just disappeared. It could not be classified as a passage; it was little more than a horizontal crack. Arn lay on his belly and wiggled into the orifice, holding the candle out before him. Here there were no pretty formations, only a dank, musty crawlway.

  Wriggling forward into the candlelight, Arn could feel the walls of the passage on all sides. As he crawled on his belly, he continually raised his head or back slightly too high, bumping one or the other on the ceiling.

  The silence from behind attested to the sheer horror Ty was feeling. John paused every few minutes to allow Arn to catch up.

  After an hour, the passage began to descend and narrow until the friction of the floor and ceiling pressing against Arn’s body was all that kept him from sliding down. He was now convinced that they would be unable to crawl backward. If something blocked the passage ahead, they would die.

  Arn heard the sound of heavy breathing behind him. He forced himself to slow his breathing to avoid the prospect of hyperventilation. The entire weight of the mountain bore down upon him as he wriggled forward. Just then, a gust of air hit him in the face and blew out the candle.

  “Damn it!” Arn said.

  He immediately heard laughter from behind. “I’m going to kill that bastard if it’s the last thing I do,” rasped Ty.

  “You’ll have to beat me to it. And I’m closer.”

  John’s voice echoed through the crawl space. “If you gentlemen would stop the chatter, you could be out here with me, standing in this large cavern.”

  Arn squeezed forward to a point where the tunnel flattened out. Finally, by feeling around with his hand, he found a place where, by turning his head sideways, he managed to get both skull and shoulders through. John grabbed both his arms and, with a strong pull, tugged Arn out into a large cavern.

  “I think I’m stuck,” said Ty.

  Arn felt his pack handed to him. Blind, he began fumbling through it, searching for the tinderbox, flint, and steel.

  Behind him, Ty’s cursing reached epic proportions.

  “Just let me reach through and guide your head,” said John in a gentle voice, showing slight concern. “There. Now stretch your arms straight out in front of you. Don’t move your head and I’ll pull you through.”

  A flame sputtered to life on the candle just in time for Arn to see John, with both feet against the wall, pulling on two arms. With a loud scraping noise, Ty slid out of the hole. He arose, his scraped and bloody face showing clear evidence of his ordeal, his eyes awash with relief and anger.

  “John, if you ever lead me into another cave, I’m going to tie you between horses and rip you apart,” Ty said, his hands braced on his knees.

  “Well, if that’s all the thanks I get for saving your ass, next time I’ll take you the hard way,” John replied, all gentleness gone.

  Arn could see very little of the cavern in which they now stood. He cautiously took a few steps away from the wall to examine more of the room.

  “Be careful,” John said. “There’s a drop-off about ten feet in front of you. This is a big cave, but it’s only a small part of a much larger set of caverns. Luckily we aren’t far from an exit.”

  “Then let’s get to it,” Ty growled.

  John headed off along the ledge to the left. Rounding a bend, they were confro
nted with the sight of a natural stone bridge, arching away into the darkness.

  Without hesitation, John stepped out onto the span and began to cross, Ty and Arn trailing behind. The bridge, barely five feet wide and sloping away on both sides to a deep drop, was covered in slick limestone flows that provided precious little in the way of firm footing.

  Their passage across the bridge ended on a ledge that soon became the floor of another cavern. Here John turned into a narrow side passage that led to another large room. A shaft of light shone through a hole high up on a steep shale slope. The way out.

  As the three men scrambled up the slope, anxious to be outside again, a sour, musty smell filled Arn’s nose. Bat guano.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever be happy to crawl through bat crap,” Ty said, “but right now, it smells pretty damned good. Of course, I’ve been smelling John for a while.”

  “As if you’re a basket of ne’er lilies,” John said.

  As the exit loomed large, Arn felt a gust of brisk air splash his face. He inhaled deeply, letting it wash his lungs.

  Arn held up a hand. “Wait here a minute.”

  He extinguished the candle, put it back in his pack, and led the group noiselessly to the cave’s mouth, pausing to allow his eyes to adjust to daylight. The cave emerged on a hillside that sloped steeply away to the west. The clouds above had begun to acquire shades of red and orange as the sun sank below the mountains that formed the western horizon. Before him, the terrain was changing. The foothills where they had entered the cave had given way to a land of tabletop plateaus. Pine trees now mixed with junipers.

  The men camped that night in a secluded glen on the edge of the mesa, their site sheltered by the rim. As the western horizon swallowed the sun, a blaze spread across the sky, consuming the thin clouds in a cauldron of scarlet and rose.