The Shattered Land

CHAPTER 35

Daine was surrounded by darkness.

He couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t see or hear. He was stranded in endless gloom.

Just a month ago, his first thought would have been am I dead? Dolurrh was said to be an empty void, a net that pulled in the souls of the fallen and held them until all memory and thought had faded away. A few weeks ago, Daine might have felt traces of panic, fear that this was the end.

Instead, his first thought was darkness again?

His second thought was to evaluate the qualities of the void, with the attention a connoisseur might give to a fine Aundairian vintage. When he was attacked by Tashana, the shadows were cold and viscous. That darkness was like tar-he could struggle against it, but there was so much pressure he could barely move.

Here, there was no pressure at all. He seemed to have no body. Trying to move an arm-there was no struggle. It wasn’t cold, because he couldn’t feel any sort of temperature. There was nothing at all. All he had were his thoughts.

His next thought was am I dead?

Before confusion could turn fully to fear, he heard a sound. A distant voice, raised in song. At first, it was pure music. Slowly Daine began to make out individual words, though he could not understand the language. As he concentrated on the song, he began to feel sensation returning, as if his spirit was flowing back into his body. There was no strength in his limbs, but at least he could feel his arms and legs again, his heart beating in his chest. The song continued, but now he realized that it wasn’t a song at all-it was a conversation. There were two voices, alternating and pausing. The language was fluid and lyrical, but the patterns weren’t those of music, and though the accent was strange, the cadence too quick, he recognized the language.

Elvish.

Daine had never learned the Elvish tongue, but he’d fought Valenar soldiers on the southern front, and he’d learned to fear the sound of an Elvish battlecry. The shadows that attacked them-slender, swift, and now he thought about it, shorter than most humans-elves. He was certain of it.

Feeling had returned to his arms and legs-enough that he could sense what an uncomfortable position he was in. He was lying flat on his stomach, with his face pressed against moist earth. His arms were stretched behind his back, his legs pulled up, and his wrists and ankles bound together. He tried pulling at the bonds, to no avail; the cord was strong, the knots tight. As slight as this motion was, he apparently attracted some attention; the singing voices broke off, and he heard someone kneel down next to him. Taking a deep breath, Daine lifted his head and opened his eyes to look at his captor.

He’d expected to see an elf: pale skin, pointed ears, fine features, large eyes with green or violet irises.

He was half right.

It was still deep night, but there was a clear path to the sky above, and the moons cast their light on the man kneeling over him. The figure staring down at him looked like an elf-at least, in silhouette, but his eyes were blank white, with no trace of veins, pupil, or iris. Half his face was missing. No, his skin was jet black, darker than any man Daine had seen, and almost invisible in the shadows, but it was covered with corpse-white patches, patterns that were too regular to be natural. The left half of the man’s face was a white mask, a stylized skull that covered much of his skin. As Daine’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw that the stranger had markings on the right side as well-fine white traceries running under his right eye and out to his long, black ear, than dropping down the side of his neck. Words, perhaps, or some sort of mystical inscription.

From his vantage point with his chin in the dirt, Daine could see little beyond the stranger’s head. The man had pale, silver-blond hair drawn into thick braids, and he wore an odd cap over his forehead, apparently made from the iridescent shell of a white lobster.

“You’d better let me go. Now.”

“Why do I do this?” It was the voice from the previous battle; this was the man who had thrown the curving stick at him. As before, his words seemed to flow together, and Daine had to struggle to make sense of it: whydu’Iduthis.

Daine tested his bonds again. “When I get mad, I … bite people.”

A smile flickered across the lips of the strange elf. He sang a phrase in his liquid tongue, and Daine heard hisses around him-apparently the laughter of the other elves.

“Tell me of yourself,” the man said. “What you come to steal, your oath to the firebinders. Tell me and your death will be swift.”

“Tempting offer.”

“No offer,” said the elf, pale eyes gleaming. “Promise.”

He stepped back, allowing Daine to get a better look at his enemy. The elf was dressed for the jungle heat. Much of his skin was exposed, inky black marred by intricate white designs. He wore a few pieces of armor, pale white shell attached to straps of leather. In addition to his cap, he wore long vambraces over each forearm, shinguards, a plate covering his upper torso, and an armored loincloth. He wore a belt of dark leather, with a wooden throwing wheel hanging down along each hip. Daine could see the hilts of some sort of swords or knives, but the weapons were slung behind the elf’s back, and Daine couldn’t get a good look at them.

A moment later, the elf knelt down again, but now he was holding something in his hand. At first Daine thought it was just another piece of white chitin-until it moved. It was a scorpion-a pale scorpion, which must have been hiding in the man’s armor.

“Xan’tora aids and inspires,” the elf said. “She shows the hunter’s path, silent motion and deadly strike.”

“Charming,” Daine said. “When I was growing up, I had a lallis hound, myself.”

The elf set his hand down, and the scorpion scurried off onto the ground. A moment later Daine felt the tiny creature climb up his shoulder and onto his back, its footsteps faint drops of rain through his clothing. He shivered, remembering the swarms of insects beneath Sharn.

“Xan’tora listens as I ask my question. You do not answer, you feel her blade. One touch brings pain. Twice is far worse. You should not survive a third-though some time passes before the pain ends.” The elf paused to let this sink in. “Why are you here?”

“I told you, we’re just trying to find our friends and leave.” Daine waited for the scorpion’s sting, but apparently the answer was sufficient.

“Then what have you done already? You do not belong in our land. You come only to steal, to desecrate. If you are to leave, you must have already taken.”

“I’m sick. We thought we could find a cure … somewhere around here. Then our thrice-damned guide touched the wrong stone and we found ourselves here.”

“Sickness?” The elf took a step back, speaking in Elvish, and a dagger appeared in his hand-Daine’s dagger. “What is this sickness? You seem to be in health.”

“It’s a disease of the mind. It doesn’t spread.” He sighed. “Look. We haven’t taken anything of yours. All we want to do is leave. Just undo these ropes and you’ll never see us again.”

“Because you go to the city of glass?”

“Yes! Do you want to search our belongings?” He glanced at the point of his own dagger, in the hand of the elf. “Assuming you haven’t already? From where I’m lying, we don’t seem to be the thieves here.”

The elf’s eyes narrowed, and Daine felt a needle in the small of his back-the jab of the tiny stinger, pressing through the links of his chainmail and piercing his shirt. Where the last dose of poison had a chilling, numbing effect, this venom felt like acid; Daine could swear that his flesh was melting around the wound, and fire spread through his blood.

“We aren’t here to STEAL!” he growled.

The elf watched him closely, as if he could read his pain. “It may be as you say, but you are friend to the firebinders. Tell me what they plan.”

“I don’t know any firebinders!” Daine cried. His back was in agony, and he could feel his heart pounding.

“You travel with their child!” The elf hissed, and for the first time he truly seemed angry. “They are fools and foul, blind to the wisdom of the wilds, but to sell their blood to the outlands-I had thought it untrue, until it was seen.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His inquisitor raised a hand, and Daine braced himself for another jolt of poison, but the elf paused.

“No? You are not the servant of the firebinders? Speak truly, or Xan’tora strikes again.”

“I don’t … know … what you are talking about!”

The tattooed elf tapped the fingers of his left hand against the blade of the dagger. “You have spirit. More than the last of your kind I killed. Perhaps you are not a thief, but only a fool.”

“Those are my only choices?”

“Prove to me that you are no servant of the firebinders, and I may release you and your mate. Are you willing of this?”

Mate? “Of course I am, and what’s that going to involve? Eating hot coals?”

The elf held out his hand, and the scorpion crawled off of Daine’s back, returning to its master’s wrist. “I am Shen’kar, Vulk N’tash of the Qaltiar.” He rose to his feet. “If you have been misled, I offer you this chance to return to the righteous path and leave our land. Lie to me, and I will hunt you in this life and the next.”

He called out in Elvish, and Daine heard his comrades answering the call. A moment later someone cut the cord binding Daine’s wrists and ankles together, but even as he stretched, he felt a new rope being tied around his left foot.

“What’s this?”

“You promise the proof,” Shen’kar said. “He wakes and is ready. Now is the time to show.” He exchanged a few more words with his companions, and the hilt of some sort of weapon was pressed into Daine’s hand. “Your mate still sleeps; we stand with her and watch. Prove your words. Flee and she dies.”

Now the cords binding his ankles together were cut, but there was a separate tether around his left shin. He tested it-the knots were tight, but there was no pressure on the rope. Two of the dark elves pulled him to his feet; glancing sideways, he saw that one was the woman he had fought earlier. Her black skin was tattooed with a series of white streaks that reminded him of tears, and he could see the cuts and contusions on the side of her head where he’d bludgeoned her. She stared at him, her large eyes blank and impossible to read.

“Little time,” Shen’kar said. “Prove swiftly. Then we decide your fate.”

His two guards stepped away. Shen’kar darted forward, Daine’s dagger in his hand, and Daine felt the cords binding his wrists fall apart. He flexed his arms, wincing at the stiffness, feeling the weight of the weapon he’d been given-a heavy wooden baton with a carved hilt.

“Act,” Shen’kar sang. “Kill the firebinder.”

Daine turned around. He saw that he’d been bound with vines, not ropes. The vine still wrapped around his left ankle ran a short distance across the clearing, to the leg of another man. The captive’s arms were bound behind his back, and he was gagged with a thick vine, like a horse with a bridle. Daine took a step back and the cord between them snapped taut, pulling the victim into the moonlight.

It was Gerrion.