The children grumbled, grunted and growled in their pens. Amantis could tell they were agitated, though no sound of the disturbance above could reach their stoma. Amantis fed them using the last of the raw goats. One of them lunged forward, a flash of scales and serrated teeth snapped at him from the shadows.
Amantis chuckled. "I know what you want. I think you'll get your taste of man-flesh soon." He glanced up at the roof of the stoma, imagining what was taking place above. Had Ctonos been stopped? Was Karux's soreav attacking even now? "Only be patient a little while longer."
He waited, fearing armed men might find his cellar and the secret passage. He had been foolish to not bring a weapon with him. He looked around, hoping to find some tool he could use as a weapon, even a rock or a stick he could use as a club. He spied the stone knife with which he had slain Ctonos. It was too small to be very threatening, but it was wicked sharp and easily concealed.
Amantis waited until he could no longer withstand the curiosity and crept up into the cellar. He heard a distant pounding on the door above and quietly slipped up the stairs, ready to bolt for the stoma below at the first crack of breaking wood.
"Oracle! Oracle! Your wife is giving birth! You must come!"
Amantis raced to the door. He put his hand to the wooden bar and paused. "Ctonos? Where is he?" he called out.
"He took the stone and left," came the muffled reply.
"And the oracle of the north? His spears?"
"They are attacking the city, but are so far unable to break through the barrier. You must hurry, Oracle. Your wife has gone into labor, but she hasn't the strength to deliver the child. The midwife fears they both will be lost!"
Amantis put the lamp on a shelf and lifted the beam from the door. He cracked the door open and peered out.
Three of the Faithful Sons awaited him with anxious faces.
"Take me to her."
As they raced along the corridor and up a flight of stairs, Amantis mourned the loss of his stone and his link to the Lords of the Beyond. Seeing the guards outside Charissa's room he realized he still had a link to the High Lord's through the child. He didn't need the stone after all!
At his approach, a guard opened the door and Amantis stepped through with a renewed confidence. He caught a quick glimpse of Charissa lying in her bed beneath a sweat-soaked sheet, her eyes closed beneath a frown of pain. The midwife stepped up and trembled fearfully before him.
"Her strength is fading fast. She will die before the baby can come."
"Garanth... Where's Garanth?" Charissa moaned.
Amantis looked around for the little brat who always seemed underfoot and saw him peeking around the open door. "Close that," he said to one of the guards.
The guard closed the door and Amantis turned back to the midwife. "Is the baby alive right now?"
The midwife wrung her hands. "Yes."
"Inside her?"
"Yes, but it will die with her if not before."
A knocking sounded on the door. "Oracle?"
"What?" Amantis shouted with growing irritation.
The guard outside cracked the door open. "The barrier has been broken. The attackers are in the city."
Charissa let out a groan. Amantis glanced at her then back at the guard. "Send for Apaidia." He closed the door and turned to the midwife, holding up the obsidian knife. A stray beam of sunlight glinted off the serrated edge. "The herdsmen of the north know that when a doe dies during the kidding, the kid can sometimes be saved."
"Oh! Don't ask me to do that. I couldn't!"
"I wasn't." Amantis walked over to Charissa's bed and ripped back the sheet.
-=====|==
Seeing Bazma fall, Macander raced up, grabbed his arms and dragged him out of spear range. He looked around for Karux, hoping he would save Bazma and heard the rally to me call of his horn. The strangely insistent pull of the horn nearly drew him away, but Bazma grabbed his wrist in one bloody hand. Before he knew it, the tireav let up a great cheer and charged into the city. Within moments they were alone on the field. The groan of the dying, the buzzing of flies and occasional caw of a crow sounding almost peaceful after the tumult of battle had left.
"Don't let me be buried in a foreign land," Bazma gasped.
Macander surveyed the battlefield, surprised at the number of dead scattered like storm-tossed driftwood. He couldn't look his friend in the eye. "You're not going to die, Baz. Why do you always assume the worst?" He looked to the sky and the lowering sun for a hopeful sign, and saw a gathering flight of carrion birds.
"Don't lie to me Mac. You can do almost everything you set your hand to perfectly, but you're a terrible liar.
No, not perfect, Macander thought. I couldn't save Garick. I couldn't save Jomel or Somek. I can only kill.
"We're the only ones left who remember the hills of the Pelahi," Bazma said.
"There's always Karux."
Bazma laughed. It turned into a horrible eruption of gurgling coughs.
Macander glanced at Bazma's wound. Bright blood oozed between his fingers from a hole in his side. Macander had seen enough wounds to know his friend would not survive this.
"Karux has been to the top of the mountain," Bazma wheezed. "He sees nothing else, not even the ground he stands on."
Macander chuckled despite himself. "True."
Bazma took several rasping breaths, rapid and shallow as a wave of pain surged through him. "I think I was fated to outlive the others, so I could suffer their deaths as well as my own. At least I won't have to suffer through your death. You probably won't ever die. I don't think death could defeat you. In fact I think it has already failed."
"What? A final bit of optimism from Bazma?" Macander regretted the use of the word final as soon as it left his lips. He tried to cover it with a smile, but couldn't lift the corners of his mouth.
"Promise me." Bazma's bloody hand gripped his arm painfully.
"I know you," Macander smiled. "You're going to pretend to die so I'll have to carry you home, aren't you?"
"Promise me," Bazma insisted.
Macander looked into his ashen face. Bazma's eyes burned with fierce desperation. He felt the words dragged out against his will. "I promise," he said softly.
Bazma gave him a slight nod, then took a deep rattling breath. He let out a long slow sigh through the faint smile of blue lips. He was gone.
-=====|==
The defending reavers fled as Karux's men flooded through the barricade. A group of strange men and women in yellow robes with mysterious symbols tattooed on their foreheads swarmed the tireav wielding clubs. They barely slowed the battle-hardened reavers who plunged through them and into an open area between the buildings. "Take some alive!" Karux called out. "We must find Amantis. He is all that matters."
Karux's men searched among the dead and dying and found a reaver still breathing. They demanded he tell them were Amantis was.
"Take the road to the center of the city and turn left. Go up the hill to the house at the top."
Karux raced onward, the tireav swirling around him like a cloak. The city dwellers scurried away at their approach though pockets of guards and the strange people in yellow robe would rush at them only to be cut down. Nearing the city's center, they saw a building fashioned from an enormous pile of bricks in a blasphemous imitation of the sacred mountain. Standing at its base, looking up at the house on its summit, it completely eclipsed the mountain behind it.
Horror and disgust raged through Karux. Was there no depth of depravity to which Amantis would not sink? He hurried away, nearly jerking Eiraena off her feet as he gripped her hand.
The huge house at the top of the hill looked like several houses joined together into a single massive building. The handful of reavers guarding the entrance did not even put up a fight. Seeing the force approaching, they threw down their spears and ran away.
Stone corridors echoed to the tramp of their sandals. The house servants screamed and fled to inner rooms. "Don't kill anyone," Karux ordered. "Take them alive and bring them to me. We must find Amantis." And Charissa, he thought. I hope you're here.
The men spread out and Karux took a group with him into a large room near the entrance with a circle of couches.
"Karux! I need to see Karux! I'm a friend." A frightened young girl entered the room. At Karux's name, the reavers turned and pointed to Karux and let her pass.
"Who are you?" Karux asked.
"My name is Lalein. I tend to Charissa."
"Charissa! Where is she? Take me to her!"
"She's upstairs. Follow me."
"Come," Karux ordered the spears to go with him and followed the girl. She scurried down a passage and up a flight of stairs. She ran ahead of them to a room at the end of the hall, entered and screamed.
Karux and his spears raced after her.
Charissa lay naked in a fancy bed. Her belly had been ripped open and blood soaked through her sheets and pooled on the floor. Karux skidded to her side, slipping in her blood and knelt beside her. "Oh! Charissa!" he moaned, putting a hand to her pale face.
Charissa's eyes fluttered open. "You came," she whispered, smiling. "I feared you wouldn't have."
"I only wish I had come sooner. If I had known...."
"Madra?"
Charissa tried to turn her head. Karux looked up to see a young boy of about six years slip into the room.
"Madra? You're bleeding."
"Come here, Garanth."
Karux caught her eye. "Is he...?"
"Yes. I had always hoped my child would have been yours, Karux."
Garanth walked over and touched her hair.
"Garanth, honey, this is your new adra."
Karux and Garanth traded puzzled looks.
"Where is the other adra?"
"He went away. He wasn't a very good adra. Karux will take care of you now."
"What happened?" Karux asked.
"He put—," Charissa's face clenched in pain. "He put something inside me. I couldn't birth it so he—he cut it out."
"I can help you, I have the skill...." Karux plunged into the world of schemas and examined her wound. The damage was enormous. Large planes of destruction cut through multiple patterns. Karux began calling the names of the elements. He started to pull the coiled patterns together, but he quickly got lost in the broken pieces. It was like the damage to Jomel's heart, only worse.
"Karux."
As he watched, the spirals uncoiled and the patterns broke apart. His focus darted from schema to schema, repairing the damage but they disintegrated faster than he could fix them.
"Karux!"
Her breathing grew more labored and, in an act of desperation, he flipped the patterns and attached them together as he had seen Eiraena do to Jomel's corpse. A strange change rippled through her patterns.
Charissa gasped. "Stop! Whatever you're doing, please stop."
Her cool smooth hand touched his arm and he blinked his way back to look into her bright hazel eyes. He had forgotten how beautiful they were.
"Promise me you'll kill it."
"What?"
"The baby. Promise me you'll kill it."
"I—"
Charissa sucked in a great shuddering gulp of air with a small cry. "Promise!"
"I will."
"I love you...."
"I love you too." Blinded, this time by tears, Karux squeezed her hand. "Charissa?" He shook her shoulder. "Charissa?"
She was already dead.