.
as one of the guards held the first prisoner’s head back, while another quickly struck with a long knife, cutting the head completely from the body. Calis held himself motionless, despite strong anger surging up within. The guard threw the head into a corner, and Calis followed its flight, watching as it landed with a wet thud among a pile of heads, some rotting, others now skulls, that sat behind the throne.
The two serpents holding the man’s body lifted it, carried it to a recessed chamber, and tossed it down out of sight. The screeches of hunger that answered caused Calis to swallow hard.
The woman who seemed unfazed by the drugs started screaming, and Calis felt his nerves grow taut. He clutched his sword hilt and ached to charge this den of monsters. One by one the drugged prisoners were slaughtered, their heads tossed to the pile after dark magics seized their life energy, and the bodies were fed to the Pantathian young.
The woman screamed continuously as she crouched on the floor, her terror outracing her fatigue. At last she remained alone before the priests. The priest with the emerald-topped staff motioned for the guards to take the woman next and they lifted her up, ripping her tunic free, so she stood naked in front of the priest, who ignored the warm sticky puddle he stepped in as he walked through the pooling blood of the victims.
Calis saw the priest motion the guards to hold the woman fast, and he saw them force her to lie back, holding her down while the priest began to make more motions with the staff and prod her with the butt end while singing in his alien tongue.
Calis felt his throat tighten. He had encountered the Pantathians’ evil sorcery before. They were able to use humans to create Pantathians who looked like humans. Calis had seen the results before and knew it was a powerful, black art being practiced below.
Calis was no student of magic, but he had some knowledge of it, and this next act was too vile for him to begin to understand. As the priest removed a long dagger from his robe and advanced upon the now shrieking woman, Calis looked away.
He judged himself too close to this place of dark magic for too long and moved backwards, slowly, into the gloom. A few paces up the passage, he turned, and hurried up the long tunnel. He quickly slipped through the door, closing it behind him, and paused a moment to let his senses start to adjust to the gloom.
As he paused, he considered what he had just seen. It was impossible to imagine what the Pantathians gained from the priest’s slow torture of a human woman. He had no doubt that eventually the priest would kill the woman, and her head would join the others on the pile as her body went to nourish the young.
He wished for a moment that Nakor had been along, for the strange little man who claimed not to believe in magic seemed to know more about it than just about anyone Calis had met. He might make some sense of how this ritual torture and slaughter tied into what he feared might be occurring with the Emerald Queen and the Valheru artifacts of power.
Calis hurried through the darkness.
Without conscious thought, he started counting steps and measuring distances with his hearing, and he hoped that he’d find his company where he had left it.
De Loungville almost leaped when Calis touched his arm. He spun around to hear a familiar voice ask, ‘Where is everyone else?’
‘Captain!’ de Loungville said. ‘I was about to say a brief prayer to Ruthia and a small testimonial to Lims-Kragma on your behalf, then get the hell out of here.
‘Now I can sit down and die of a burst heart!’
‘Sorry I startled you, but I couldn’t tell who it was here in the dark, and it smelled like you but I wanted to be sure.’
‘Smelled like me …?’
‘It’s been a while since you’ve had a bath, Bobby.’
‘You’re no bunch of roses either. Calis.’
‘Have you a torch?’
To answer, De Loungville struck steel to flint and set a hot spark into the treated cotton wadding wrapped on a stick. The flame started modestly but spread quickly, and by the time de Loungville held it up, they were bathed in a pool of light.
‘Call me mother, but you look a fright,’ said de Loungville. ‘What did you find down there?’
‘I’ll tell you when we’ve put some distance between us and it. Which way?’
‘We found a passage used by some serpent men, so I put Greylock in charge and sent the men in the other direction, to the left.’
‘Good: that should mean they’re on the surface by now. If we hurry, we can overtake them before they get too far down the hillside. We’re a lot higher up than when we came in the tunnel, Bobby.’
‘And a lot farther from where we want to be than we were when we started,’ responded de Loungville.
‘We’d better hurry. We have a long way to go.’ Softly Calis added, ‘And I fear not that much time to get there.’
• Chapter Twenty-One • Attrition
Erik ducked.
A shower of darts flew through the air and bounced off his shield as he tried to keep low to the ground. Since leaving the cavern and moving down through the hills to the grasslands, Nakor and Sho Pi had both claimed they were being observed.
When they had finally reached an area of broken rocks, islands of limestone, shale, and granite that broke up pools of tall grass, a sudden attack of the Gilani had greeted them. Six men died in the first assault, which was barely driven back by the heroic efforts of those in the forefront.
Greylock had quickly organized the defense, and the struggle had gone on for nearly a half day. Two more men had died as they retreated up the hillside, looking for this defensive position. Praji and Vaja had moved to the front, and were in council with Greylock as Erik approached.
‘I’ve got everyone situated as best I could, Owen. We’re taking a beating.’
‘I know,’ came the calm reply. He looked at Praji and said, ‘Any idea why they hit us?’
Praji shrugged. ‘We’re here and they’re Gilani. They don’t like anyone who isn’t Gilani, and we’re about to enter the grasslands. That’s their range and they’re trying to tell us to keep off.’
‘How’d the damn grass get so tall this time of year?’ asked Greylock.
Vaja said, ‘There are some that grow in the winter and others in the summer, and they are all mixed in down there, is my guess.’
Putting aside his frustration, Greylock asked, ‘Is there another way out of these mountains?’
Praji shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Even if I knew exactly where we were, I’ve never traveled this way. Few men from the Eastlands have.’ He looked around. ‘I’m guessing if we could get over the ridge’ – he pointed upward at the highest peaks of the mountains – ‘we might be able to make our way down to the Satpura River. Maybe make some rafts and get down to the coast near Chatisthan. Or we could move back up into the foothills, staying high enough so the Gilani don’t come after us, and could head south, see if we can find a way to the river Dee and follow that down to Ispar, but I don’t recommend that course.’
‘Why not?’
‘That would take us through the Great South Forest. Not a lot of people get through there alive. Rumor has it that’s where your Pantathians hole up, and it’s where tigers that talk like men live …’ When Greylock looked at him with disbelief written on his face, he quickly added. But that’s only rumor.’
A whizzing sound in the air warned them a scant second before another rain of darts pelted them. Erik tried to get his bulk below his shield. A shout and curse told him someone hadn’t covered up quickly enough