In the background Alinata keeps flexing her fingers as she watches the trees, occasionally throwing him impatient glances. Then her shoulders tense up, and Salo feels a ripple of cold energy as she wraps the Void around herself like a cloak. She appears to blur out of sight just the slightest bit while ghosts of fluttering ravens start swirling around her.
“She’s near. And she has company.” Something hardens in Alinata’s eyes, and she seems to come to some hidden decision. “I’ll distract her so you can deal with the others.”
Salo gets up to his feet before she does something foolish. “Don’t try facing her alone, Alinata. She’s too powerful.”
“We need to separate her from her forces if we want any chance of surviving this. I’m the best person for the job, and it’ll give you time to deal with whomever or whatever she’s here with.”
He doesn’t argue with her because he knows she’s right. “Are you sure about this?”
She nods, then seems to consider her words. “But if I get trapped in the Void, can I trust that you’ll get me out?”
Salo studies her face for a beat, and he thinks he sees the dimmest specter of fear hiding beneath her otherwise calm appearance. “I’ll do my best, Alinata,” he says, which gets her to tilt her head and smile.
“Your best has done great thus far, so it’ll have to do. See you on the other side of this.” And then she turns into a flock of ravens and flutters away into the trees.
40: Ilapara
Bonobo Province—Kingdom of the Yontai
Ilapara has never been one for patience in the face of impending danger. If she knows an attack is coming and she can’t escape, she prefers to meet it head-on. Take control of the situation, drive the enemy out into the open, never let them gain a foothold.
Probably why she starts growing impatient as she waits in the camp clearing for the Maidservant and her forces to ambush them. She taps into her training to sharpen her senses and quicken her reflexes but ends up too alert, picking up on even the softest hiss of the wind and the quietest chirping of bugs in the earth and trees around her. Maddening.
Several times she glares down at Salo while she paces restlessly with her spear locked in a tight grip. The boy is back to sitting motionless on a tree stump with his staff balanced on one end between his legs, while the red serpent on his left wrist shoots out regular arcs of light from its crystal eyes. She saw him cast spells of lightning earlier, but now he’s just sitting there like a wooden carving, waiting.
He should have left when he had the chance.
Tuksaad is almost her mirror opposite, facing the bridle path beyond the clearing with his shoulders free of tension, his face calm and serene like he’s basking in a pretty sunset. She would think him wholly unprepared for what’s coming were his eyes not as inky as the night sky on a new moon. There’s also the long blade dangling from his good hand, a sleek-looking thing of gold with a slight curve, chased with esoteric scripts that give off a red glow.
At last, Ilapara loses her patience. “Alinata’s been gone for minutes now. Where is she?” And why the devil are we not already under attack?
Salo responds without moving to face her. “She’s locked in battle with the Maidservant in the Void. It’ll be some time before it ends one way or the other.” And then, almost as an afterthought, he tilts his head slightly and says, “A large beast is approaching from the west. I’m sending Mukuni to intercept.”
The cat is on his feet instantly, his mane of metal spines rattling like peals of thunder, and with a fierce growl he makes for the bridle path and bounds west. Long seconds pass before the ground trembles under the weight of violent roars. Trees snap with loud cracks in the distance as the battling beasts tumble between them.
Ilapara shares a tense look with Tuksaad. At the same time Ingacha lets out a nervous grunt where she tethered him next to the abada.
“We’re surrounded,” Salo says rather distantly, like he might not be fully in his body. “About a dozen men armed with machetes. All wearing red skulls on their faces.”
“Definitely reavers.” Ilapara scans the trees, then twists to look over her shoulder at Salo. Dear Ama, I wish I had a soul charm right now. “A dozen, you said?”
“If there are more, they haven’t entered my field of view.” He tilts his head like he’s trying to get a better view of something in front of him. “Well, that’s a pity.”
“What is it?” Ilapara and Tuk say at the same time.
“Their garments have powerful protective charms,” he says. “I won’t be able to incapacitate them as I’d hoped.”
As if they can read each other’s minds, Ilapara and Tuk both move into vanguard positions, putting Salo’s seated form between them.
“Whatever happens,” Salo says to them, “I want you both to know that you’ve been good friends to me in the short time we’ve known each other.”
“Then let’s make sure we live long enough to become even better friends,” Tuk says. “I don’t intend for any of us to die today.”
They say reavers have no souls and are incapable of feeling pain or mercy. Beneath the terrific roars coming from the west, Ilapara tries to pick up the rustle of leaves and the crunch of footfalls, but if the reavers are coming, they aren’t making much noise.
Salo speaks, once more in a strangely detached voice. “I’ve warded the clearing. Stay within two hundred yards of this position. And don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine.”
She looks around, searching for signs of the ward, but sees nothing. Before she can ask, multiple flashes of movement appear in the trees around the camp. Shadows subsequently materialize and resolve into bare-chested men in black kikois, aerosteel vambraces, and hide skins hanging over their fronts. Red skulls cover the upper halves of their faces, making their heads look misshapen and protuberant from a distance. Their machetes are crusted with dried blood, and their leering grins are each and every one of them dental horrors of blackened teeth filed to spikes.
No one faces a dozen reavers and walks away with their head still intact. Ilapara knows this, but as she falls deeper into her conditioning, everything becomes a remote consideration, everything but the here and now, the spear in her hand, the breath in her lungs.
Survive this second and get to the next.
The reavers close in on the camp almost leisurely, like a pack of hyenas moving in on wounded prey. Ilapara readies herself for an attack, but the men all stop at some hidden cue, and then the tallest of them speaks in a deep, gravelly voice. “You have made us chase you a long way, sorcerer. That’s going to cost you dearly in blood and guts.”
Battle scars striate his entire torso, and a necklace of bones rests around his neck. Ilapara is taken aback by the sheer murder burning openly in his bloodshot eyes, like Salo is the bane of his existence.
Without moving an inch from where he’s sitting, Salo answers the man in Izumadi. “We have never met. I have not wronged you in any way. Why do you pursue me?”
“We serve a master,” the reaver snarls, “and when he says kill, that’s what we do. But you we will kill with extra relish for making us chase you this far. I’ve lost good men because of you.”