Unbroken Chain

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ashok took Darnae’s parchment and found an abandoned stone building near the outskirts of the market. He could hear the babble of voices in the distance, but no one came near the half-collapsed structure. The roof had sagged, forcing him to stoop when he went inside. He found a darkened corner with enough light filtering through the gaps in the stone to allow him to see clearly.

He laid the parchment out on the ground, un-stoppered the ink bottle, and took the quill awkwardly in his hand.

It would have been easier to write with his fingers, but Ashok didn’t want the stains to betray him. He worked slowly, and he ruined several of the parchment sheets; but Darnae had been generous with her gift. By the fifth sheet, he’d managed a rough sketch of the four towers, the bridges and lower city, and the wall. He copied the number of guards he’d seen on the wall from the soiled bandages to the parchment, and added notes on placement written in his own almost unintelligible shorthand.

He made other notes and observances on how often the bells tolled and their names. He listed the ranks of shadar-kai soldiers and wrote a complete physical description of Uwan.

They maintain a constant physical and magical presence on the wall, he wrote. No knowing if the towers themselves are magicallyprotected, but it makes sense that they would be, to protect the tall structures from siege equipment and anything that might come through their outer portal.

He paused in his writing, wondering what his father would make of the information. His sire would never be able to mount an offensive against such a force, Ashok thought, but maybe the presence, the mere threat.…

It might be enough to draw the enclave’s attention away from its infighting, at least for a time. A threat from without could cause them to band together and emerge from hiding. There would be no more useless waste.

Ashok waited for the ink to dry and tucked the parchment in the pouch inside his armor. He hid the quill and ink among the ruins for use later. He left the building, picked out Tower Makthar in the distance, and started walking roughly in that direction. He did not want Skagi, Jamet and the others to know he had been wandering alone. Let them think he was content to train with the other recruits. If they thought he was tamed, it would draw their attention away from him.

When he got past Tower Pyton, the stone buildings thinned out into empty dirt streets choked with stone debris. Near the base of the canyon wall, Ashok glimpsed another fence made of iron, like the one encircling Tower Athanon, but higher. A handful of low stone buildings squatted nearby. Thin black smoke rose from two of them.

Beyond the buildings, Ashok saw a yawning cave mouth set into the canyon wall. He slowed his pace. He smelled fire, metal, and animal fur all wrapped up in a stinging reek that made his eyes water. Cautiously, he approached the iron fence, his hands gripping the bars.

Then he heard it.

Faintly, so it only sent a shiver of apprehension up his spine, then gradually the sound-a hollow, terrible scream-drew closer. Ashok waited, watching the cave mouth with a kind of giddy dread.

When the nightmare appeared like a blazing torch at the mouth of the cave, Ashok caught his breath.

A shadar-kai woman brought it out, its face covered by a hood and secured with chains so it couldn’t bite her. She’d wrapped a stiff cloth around her head and ears to dull the scream, but Ashok could see that it still affected her. She took sluggish steps, stumbled often, and jerked the nightmare’s head each time the scream rang out until it finally fell quiet.

They reached the fence, which contained an open pasture of sorts, with dead, singed grass all around. The woman opened a gate, removed the nightmare’s hood, and released the chain to let the beast run in relative freedom around the paddock.

As soon as it was clear of the woman, the nightmare immediately charged the fence, slamming its body against the iron. Ashok felt the bars rattle under his hands.

When it was clear the fence wasn’t going to give in that spot, the nightmare cantered back and charged again, searching for a weakness in the fence it could exploit. Its headlong rush brought it only a few feet away from where Ashok stood, close enough that he could smell the burning hair scent of the nightmare’s mane. Its steamy breath heated the air.

“Well met, again,” Ashok murmured. “You’re no happier here than you were in the cage, are you?”

The nightmare saw him and snorted, its red eyes so dark they were almost black. It strode up to where Ashok stood and slammed its head into the bars in front of his face.

Ashok leaped back, the nightmare’s bloody breath in his mouth, the burnt hair scent all around him. The change in the air temperature was a palpable thing. He began to sweat, as if he were standing in the middle of a bonfire.

“I think he likes you,” said a teasing voice from across the paddock.

Ashok met the gaze of the shadar-kai woman. “He’s beautiful,” Ashok said.

The woman shook her head. “He won’t be tamed, no matter what Uwan wants,” she said. “He tries to kill anyone who comes near him, and when someone does get close enough … Well, there are the dreams.”

Ashok approached the fence again. The nightmare backed away and regarded him with his steely crimson gaze. Unable to dislodge him from the fence, the beast blew a steamy, impatient breath and pranced in place, threatening with his burning body.

Ashok smiled grimly. “You don’t scare me,” he said.

The female shadar-kai came to stand beside Ashok. “I’m Olra,” she said, offering him her hand.

Ashok clasped it briefly. “Where did they capture him?” he asked.

“Out on the plains,” Olra said. “He’d been in a fight with something bigger than him-got cut up bad enough that the caravan was able to get him in a cage while he was unconscious. Otherwise they’d never have been able to take him. He’s too wild, even for his kind.”

Ashok looked at the nightmare, the eyes burning with red hatred. He understood the feeling.

“What did you mean when you said ‘there are the dreams’?” Ashok asked.

“The nightmare sends them,” Olra said. “It’s the scream that does it. Works into your mind somehow and roots out what you’re most afraid of. After a few days, even a shadar-kai can’t stand the horror.” She nodded to the nightmare. “He makes them think they’re fading.”

“He knows it too,” Ashok said. “Look at him.”

The nightmare paced back and forth before the fence. Flame roared down his mane and fetlocks, scarring the ground an oily black as the beast took one stride after another across the paddock. He marks his territory and dares anyone to invade, Ashok thought.

“Are you all right?” Olra asked abruptly. She was looking at how Ashok’s arm dangled at an awkward angle.

“I was on my way to Tower Makthar for healing,” Ashok said. Taking one last look at the magnificent beast, Ashok stepped away from the fence.

Olra was looking at him curiously. Looking at her face, Ashok realized how heavily scarred she was.

Puckered flesh from burns, and a web-work of claw slashes decorated her collarbone. The marks were not self-inflicted, that much was evident. Her left cheek looked like it had been bitten and healed slightly off-center, giving her face an asymmetrical appearance.

“You’re the one everyone’s talking about,” Olra said. “Uwan’s ghost.”

“A ghost?” Ashok said. “Why do they call me that?”

“Because no one knows who you are or where you came from. You came to us a prisoner, yet you walk among us as if you were an ally. But no one questions it,” Olra said. “If Uwan has a reason for you being here, that’s enough.”

“You trust your leader that much?” Ashok said. “What if he’s wrong?”

“Uwan is never wrong,” Olra said.

The simple confidence in her voice kept Ashok from uttering the retort he wanted to. He changed the subject. “Will you break the nightmare yourself?” he asked.

“I’ll try,” she said.

“More scars,” Ashok murmured.

“These?” Olra said as she held up her hands, which were covered with slowly healing blisters. “All were earned for Ikemmu,” she said, with pride in her voice. “The beasts we train will either defend the city, or we’ll sell them to the other races, which brings us coin. There is honor in both. There are also these.” She bared her left arm for Ashok. From shoulder to wrist, the beasts of the Shadowfell stared back at Ashok in tattoos. Shadow hounds and ravens, nightmares and serpents-one picture blended into the next.

“Are these the creatures you’ve broken?” Ashok asked.

Olra nodded. “They’re all a part of me. I own them, and they own me,” she said, indicating her scars.

Ashok nodded. He could think of nothing to say.

“You’d better go on, get your shoulder looked at,” Olra said. She walked away from him along the fence, her hand trailing against the bars. The nightmare measured her progress, but he didn’t attack the fence again.

“Aren’t you afraid of him?” Ashok called after her. “Afraid of fading?”

Olra stopped and turned to look at him. “Of course,” she said. “I had a predecessor, head of the Camborrs, just like I am now. How do you suppose he died?”

Behind the fence, the nightmare breathed and stamped the ground black.

Ashok went to the temple to accept Tempus’s healing, but he couldn’t shake the image of the nightmare from his thoughts. Maybe he’d been doomed from the moment he heard the beast’s scream, for when he’d been healed, Ashok found himself walking back to the Camborr pen. He spent time watching all the creatures as they were brought out: the shadow hounds, the jaguars, the serpents-any beast the caravan could capture.

But the nightmare was a creature apart from them all.

Ashok stood at the fence while Olra put the horse-it wasn’t right to call him that, Ashok thought, the name was demeaning-through his paces from a distance with a long whip. She never actually struck the creature; she couldn’t, unless her whip was iron-tipped. The flimsy leather end would burn to cinders if it got too near the nightmare’s flaring mane.

“It’s not going well,” Olra said when she saw Ashok. “No one’s going to be able to ride him. He sets fire to the ground whenever anyone comes near him, so we peck at him from behind the fence. It’s all we can do.”

The nightmare reared, biting at the whip that snapped near his face. Olra tried to jerk it free, but the nightmare yanked it out of her hands. Cursing, Olra backed away as the beast came at the fence and banged against the bars.

Olra dusted off her hands and went to stand beside Ashok. “He enjoys it,” she said, “knowing he’s the one in control. It’s all sport for him.”

Ashok shook his head. “It only makes the imprisonment bearable,” he said.

Olra blew out a sigh. “Well, whatever it is, it’s going to get him killed,” she said.

“What?” Ashok said. It came out sharper than he’d intended.

“What else would I do?” Olra said disgustedly. “The shadar-kai can’t use him, because of the nightmares. His screams would throw them off balance in a battle. I told you he was too wild, even for his kind. That’s what I’ll tell Uwan too.”

“Sell him,” Ashok said. “He must be valuable in coin.”

“Oh, he is,” Olra said. “Trained, he’d bring in a heap of coin. But wild as he is now, it would take just the right mix of wealth and crazy in a buyer to take him on, and I can’t wager on that person striding up out of thin air. Meanwhile I’m losing time trying to wrangle the beast, time that could be spent training the shadow hounds or the panthers. Them I can work.”

“Set him free, then,” Ashok said. He clenched the fence bars in agitation. “Take him up to the plain and release him. It’s a waste to kill him.”

Olra shook her head. “I can’t risk any of the Camborrs on that kind of mission. If something went wrong, I’d never be able to justify the loss of life to Uwan.”

“Yes, because Uwan protects his people,” Ashok said bitterly. “Except those he enslaves for no reason.”

He pressed his forehead against the iron bars. When would he outlive his novelty to the shadar-kai leader? Ashok wondered.

He stared at the nightmare for a long time, then he turned to Olra. “Let me break him,” he said.

Olra scoffed. “You’re out of your head,” she said. “Warriors in training don’t come inside my fence. You’ll be eaten alive.”

“And you’ll have lost nothing,” Ashok said. “You said yourself I’m not a Camborr, so my death wouldn’t matter to your work. But if I did make progress with the beast, then you’d be able to sell him for a great profit. Ikemmu would benefit from that coin-isn’t that what you want?”

“It’s not that easy,” Olra said. “You may be an outsider, but Uwan values you. I can’t do anything without speaking to him first.”

“Then speak to him,” Ashok said. “I’ll train your beast.”