“What was that?” the prisoner asked.
A second, then a third, then a fourth bleat joined the first, until the air was rocked by a relentless concussive assault. The barred door shook on its hinges, and voices shouted from outside, demanding entry. The Master Warden heard a voice in his ear, a command to travel south, and his body flooded with relief.
“What was that?” repeated Wallace, sounding desperate.
Ahaesarus offered a prayer of thanks to his distant god, then turned to the prisoner.
“No questions,” he said. “Your reward is waiting.”
He placed his huge hands on either side of Wallace’s head and jerked it violently to the side. The man’s neck snapped, severing his spinal column. His eyes bulged from their sockets, his final breaths bursting forth raggedly. Ahaesarus released him, let his head dangle on his fractured neck as bloody spittle dripped from his mouth. He felt sick at the sight of the body, the very first life ended by his hands, but he did his best to shove aside his feelings of guilt. Ashhur forgive me for this horror. He rushed to the door, threw aside the bar, and opened it to find Turock, Uulon, Judah, and Grendel standing there panting. Meanwhile, the bellowing hornlike sounds continued to blare.
Turock was enraged when he spotted Wallace’s dangling corpse.
“You killed our prisoner!” he shouted.
Ahaesarus shoved him aside.
“I gave him mercy,” he answered, approaching his two fellow Wardens. “And he told us all we needed to know.”
“And the sound?” asked Judah. “What is it?”
“The battle cry of the grayhorns,” Ahaesarus said with a nod, thinking of what Ashhur had shown him in his vision. “Grendel, get the others. We are leaving this place.”
“You can’t do that!” protested Turock, following on their heels as they strode down the corridor.
“You told me you wished for me to leave.”
“I changed my mind!”
Ahaesarus didn’t answer him. They walked out of the tower and into a morning that was nearly blinding in its brightness. The people of the camp all seemed to be awake, glancing around in confusion as the grayhorns’ bleating continued to sound. Only after Grendel ran off to gather up the other Wardens did Ahaesarus turn to face the spellcaster. He continued to follow the path alongside the mountain as he looked at Turock, heading toward the rise that hid the camp from view. The greyhorns were much louder here, almost swallowing all other sounds.
“We are done here,” he said. “Our duty lies to the south, in Mordeina. That is where we are needed most, as are your spellcasters.”
Turock shook his head.
“But what of those across the river? What happens when they attack? You came here to assist us! Are you saying you wish us to abandon our homes?”
“I came to assist Ashhur,” he shot back. “To protect Paradise from destruction.” He waved his arm back toward the river. “This is merely a diversion. The force gathered in the Tinderlands is a distraction, nothing more. Karak or Jacob or someone decided the best way to weaken Ashhur’s defenses was to thin out his resources.” He looked down at the strange man, whose bloodstained robe billowed around him as he struggled to match the Warden’s much longer strides. “They consider those you have trained to be the biggest threat to their victory, so they will continue to torment you and keep you guessing. Those across the river are willing to give their own lives to keep you out of the way. They know they cannot win against those you have trained, but they do not care.”
The man grabbed his arm, halting him in place. “Wait. Are you saying…?”
“Yes. It is a ruse, Turock. A grand ruse to keep you and your students out of the way. You have been played on all sides.”
“The prisoner told you this?”
Ahaesarus smiled. “He did not need to.”
He scaled the hill before them and gazed out across the grayhorns’ grazing fields. Turock seemed calmer now, displaying a dutiful sort of pride. It takes acknowledgment of your talents for you to listen? Ahaesarus felt pity for the man.
“Your home will not go undefended,” the Warden said. “You will stay behind with half your apprentices and whatever townsfolk choose not to leave. The others will join me and my fellow Wardens…and them…on the trek to Mordeina.”
Turock’s gaze shifted to the field.
“Oh my,” he said, jaw slack. “Where are they going?”
Ahaesarus watched the massive wrinkled hides of more than a thousand grayhorns as they marched south, disappearing into the distance, their bleating fading away.
“They are going to the same place as us,” he said. “The capital of Paradise. Ashhur is forming his army.”
CHAPTER 42
The dungeons below Palace Thyne used to be the only place in Dezerea devoid of color. When Ceredon joined forces with Kindren Thyne to free Aullienna Meln and her people, there had been nothing down there but walls of lime rock and granite and thick steel bars. It had been drab and lonely, a truly hopeless setting for those without hope.
That had changed, for now the dungeons were speckled everywhere with shades of red.
A despondent Lord Orden had once told him the dungeons had not been used since the emerald city’s creation nearly a century before. All that had changed when the Quellan arrived and conquered their cousins. Afterward, not a day passed when Ceredon didn’t see a member of the Ekreissar march a beaten and bloodied Dezren down the stairwell behind the palace. As he looked around now, locked in the very cell that had once held Aully, he saw evidence of what had happened to those poor souls. Their bones were stacked up in the nearby cells, ribcages on pelvic bones, on femurs, on skulls, large and small, adult and child. The walls were painted with their dried blood, a sickening brown and black, while patches of writhing white marked where thick chunks of flesh and innards had been cast aside. Flies buzzed around it all.
It was the most awful thing Ceredon had ever experienced, the macabre answer to his questions about what Clovis Crestwell did during his long hours locked away in the dungeon.
Ceredon was weak and starving, forced to sleep in the lone corner of the cell he had managed to clear of elven remains. Time dragged on, day and night indistinguishable, while he stared with ever-growing acceptance at the ruin that surrounded him. The torches on the corridor’s rough granite walls always burned brightly despite the fact none came to change them.
Even though his situation was hopeless, Ceredon did not give up, did not give in. He was the prince of the Quellan, the future Neyvar of his people. He would be strong for them. He had no choice. At least that was what he told himself.
His stomach rumbled, and he reclined in his corner and closed his eyes. At least the smell doesn’t bother me anymore, he thought. The rancid stench of decay had made his head spin at first. Now that sensation had passed, the reek becoming as normal to him as the scent of the flowering dogwoods that lingered in the air from spring until fall in Quellassar.
Thoughts of home brought back his concerns for his father. When he had first awoken in this terrible place, he’d expected the Neyvar to free him at any moment. In between bouts of nausea he would sit idly, hands wrapped around his knees, and watch the distant door to the outside world. But that door never opened. His conscience constantly chided him: He is ashamed of my failure and has disowned his only son. There were many moments in which Ceredon, who had never so much as shed a tear for as long as he could remember, felt close to crying.
“Did I do you wrong, Father?” he pleaded at the ceiling. “Did I not do as you wished? Please, tell me!”