The Key to the Warriors (completed)

Chapter 48

He huffed. "Is it also why you stood by and did nothing while the Creator beat me down and cast me out himself?"

"You brought that on yourself by trying to kill him." Scraping my hands over my face, I groaned as I met his eyes again. "I didn't bring you here to discuss the past."

"Right, you want me to forsake the army I've spent the last several weeks with, give up on my life's dream, and come crawling on my knees to kiss the Creator's ass? Does that about sum it up?"

"No, I don't give a damn about your newfound friends. I just want you to leave Charlie alone and give up this childish ambition of ever achieving the Immi power, or the immortality. It was not created to be held by an Immi. It was designed for the Creator alone."

"Then it would not be so difficult for him to wield. That piddly child you call Creator is no more fit to contain the power of the Immi within himself than would be a dog. He disgraces its potential."

I shook my head. "Charlie is stronger than you give him credit for." With a deep breath, I lowered to my knees, hating the way his lips turned up in a grin as I did so. "I'm begging you, Jackal. Call it off."

"Mm, I like to see you beg, Zirlic. Reminds me of your son, and the way he begged you on his knees not to let his father banish him."

Cold washed through me as I looked up at him. "I know you're angry with me, but our past is not Charlie's fault, and I don't want this to end badly for either of us."

"Are you afraid the Creator will kill me?"

Without looking at him, I shook my head. "No. I know the Creator will kill you. What I fear is what it will cost him to do so."

His lips turned up in hatred as he glared down on me. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you found a new son in the Creator."

"I'm on my knees, Jackal... Allistair. I'm on my knees. Please just call it off, for your own sake as well as mine."

In a flash of movement, he had rounded to stand behind me, his sword unsheathed and pressed to my throat. I grunted as he hoisted it up, nicking the skin as I craned my neck.

"Or I could just kill you now and spare myself that pitiful look in your eyes."

"What can I do to convince you?" I grunted around the blade and winced as his hand squeezed hard into my shoulder.

"Nothing."

With that he dragged his blade across my throat, parting the skin as my hands immediately flew to try and stop the bleeding as I choked. When I looked up, he had moved to stand in front of me again.

"We'll see you in two weeks... Dad." He reached up and pinched his ear, bursting into droplets before he vanished.

*****

Charlie

I'd searched as far as the beach and sent Austin up to check the lighthouse as I ran into the outer reaches of the fields and livestock hills. I even had Abigail searching her neck of the woods for any sign of Zirlic or Xylem. Xylem, I assumed, had made his way back to Sevorrah, and it would only be a matter of time before he returned. But what had been initial suspicion on the part of Zirlic's sudden disappearance, had turned to an aching worry as the night grew longer.

Zak met me as I exited the river trail, his arms raised in question. "You find him?"

Shaking my head, he slowed and fell into step beside me as we started across the battlefield. "Maybe he just went somewhere to think things over for a while."

Zak nodded, pausing halfway between the sleeping dome and first aid to face me. "Listen, I hate to ask, but the way he reacted to Xylem's betrayal... you don't think he's in on it, do you?"