Unbroken Chain (single books) Read online

  As Ashok watched the different races mixing together, he slowly grew aware of the rest of the city. The shadows and torch light grudgingly resolved themselves into movement, voices, and life. Ashok turned at the sound of falling water, and as he moved from shadow to shadow, coming around the side of the prison tower, his world turned with him and became something very different from all he had experienced before.

  Ashok looked up. His vision blurred in the smoke-filled draft, and when it cleared he could take in the truth.

  Not one, but four immense obsidian towers scaled the western canyon wall, their tops nearly scraping the immense roof of the city.

  The towers rose over a hundred feet and looked from his small vantage to be almost as wide. Ashok could not begin to guess their true girth, or take in the scores of lights shining through open archways up and down the structures. The light-filled portals begged entry into the various tower levels, but Ashok saw the guards standing at each doorway. Their masked, armored forms clutched barbed spears hung with black and red banners-Tempus’s sword and a crimson shield. They spiraled up the towers, snapping in the constant breeze.

  “Gods,” Ashok said, and he laughed out loud in spite of himself. He stepped out of the shadows, spread his arms, and bowed deeply from the waist. “Magnificent!” he cried.

  When he could think again, he considered the numbers in his head. He’d descended a spiral stair ten feet, no more, in the tower he’d just left. There had been a handful of clerics and wounded on that level, and he’d counted six doors leading to others rooms that might have been filled with shadar-kai. And those were just in the towers. More structures filled the landscape around them.

  Ashok’s mind whirled as he considered the numbers. As many as ten thousand, he calculated, maybe more, but not many less. There was no knowing.

  “So this is Ikemmu,” he said. “City of towers.”

  He’d forgotten the sound of falling water. The tower in Ashok’s shadow was backed by a massive waterfall that slicked down the cavern wall, darkening the stones and ending in a large basin. The figures of dark ones, as well as the warm-skinned races, flitted about with jugs, collecting water and chattering at each other in the shadar-kai tongue.

  Overcome by the grandeur of the city, Ashok put aside his instinct to hide, walked up to the water, and kneeled. The others cleared a path for him and kept their gazes averted. Ashok cupped his hands in the water. He raised the liquid to his lips and drank. It tasted glorious.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow slide onto the water.

  Ashok sliced the basin’s surface with the flat of his palm, sending water up in sheets. Squeals and shrieks sounded the dark ones’ retreat, but the shadow dodged to the side. Ashok spun and kicked, but the figure that had approached jumped out of the way, and there came movement to Ashok’s left.

  With no other ready defense, Ashok vaulted the basin and stood to his thighs in the cold water, the stone lip a barrier between himself and two male shadar-kai warriors. The warrior on his left was armed with katars, while the one on the right held an elegant falchion. Hanging from his belt was Ashok’s chain and dagger.

  “You’re a skittish one, aren’t you?” the man holding his weapons said, not waiting for an answer. “We’re not here to ambush you.”

  “Just as well,” Ashok said. “I’d have killed you if you were.” Water flowed past his thighs, its chill biting into his legs and cooling his tensed muscles. “What do you want?”

  Amusement played across the shadar-kai’s gray features. “We’ve come to show you the city,” said the one with his weapons. He took Ashok’s chain off his belt and tossed it at him. Ashok caught the hand guard at one end; the other hit the water, sending wet spikes into the air. His dagger was held out toward him by the curved blade.

  Ashok stepped out of the basin, took the weapon by the hilt, and sheathed it. “Are you the leader here?” he said, his eyes taking in the belly of the canyon and the teeming city.

  “Not by long ranks. I’m Skagi,” the man said. He nodded at his partner. “My brother, Cree.”

  The other shadar-kai nodded at Ashok and grinned. He was smaller than his brother but quicker, Ashok thought, and silent in his black leather armor. It was Skagi’s shadow Ashok had seen first. By the time he’d detected Cree, the man might have had a katar blade in his throat.

  Ashok cursed himself. Too slow, fool. Your soul is on the block for the taking. You’re letting the city impress you too much.

  Ashok wound the chain and hooked it on his belt. “Why return these to me?” he asked.

  “Orders,” Cree said. “We’re to escort you around the city. Anywhere you want to go.”

  “Except the gate,” Ashok said.

  “You don’t like our hospitality?” Skagi asked. “We saved your life. It was our patrol that found you on the plain.”

  “I’ve never seen a lone warrior take on an entire pack of shadow hounds,” Cree spoke up. “How did you do it?”

  “Cree,” Skagi said.

  Cree laughed. “My brother wants to pretend he’s not curious, but he aches to know as much as I do,” he said. “How did you do it?”

  “They were going to kill me,” Ashok said. “No matter what I did, no matter how I attacked. Once I’d swallowed that, everything after was just good sport.”

  “For you or for the hounds?” Skagi asked.

  Ashok shrugged. “Both,” he replied.

  The brothers were silent. Skagi watched him appraisingly. Ashok saw he had dark green tattoos covering the left side of his body. The symbols looked like chains and spikes woven together in a complex pattern. Ashok couldn’t imagine how long it must have taken to complete the tattoo. In contrast, Cree had only two symbols that Ashok could see: curved blades above each of his temples.

  Capable warriors, Ashok thought. More captors sent to watch over him. Maybe he could use them to his advantage.

  Ashok turned and faced the guard wall. “Will you take me there?” he asked.

  Skagi and Cree exchanged a glance. “You’re mad if you think you can escape,” Skagi said.

  “Who says I’m not mad?” Ashok replied. He removed the chain from his belt and held it ready at his side.

  “Go on, Skagi, he’s testing you,” Cree said. He slapped his brother on the shoulder, but Skagi wasn’t paying attention. He was still watching Ashok.

  A breath passed, then another, and finally the tension broke. Whatever Skagi had been considering, he’d obviously made his decision, for he grinned and relaxed. “Fine then, if you want a look. Uwan said we were to take you anywhere in the city you wanted to go.”

  “Uwan,” Ashok said, after they’d started off. “He’s your leader?”

  “For almost as long as we’ve been alive,” Cree said. He pointed to the south, to the fourth tower rising against the canyon wall. Enclosed by an iron fence, the tower was carved up by doorways and guards, the same as the others, but in between them were carvings of Tempus’s sword. There were other pictures too: engravings of humanoid beings-not shadar-kai, Ashok thought, but maybe one of the other races he’d seen roaming the city. Vast wings sprouted from the backs of many of them. Even the ones that were barren suggested flight in some form or another, by the positioning of the carvings.

  Ashok’s gaze drifted up to near the tower’s top. Here there was a carved image of a single eye. Outlined in white, it stared down at the fenced tower yard and out over the city.

  It was not a large drawing, nor was it as absorbing as the sword carving he’d seen on the wall of the sickroom. Looking at it, Ashok thought it was out of place, hovering above the city, watching, waiting for something to happen.

  “Is that where Uwan dwells?” Ashok asked, pointing to the tower and its unblinking eye.

  “Most of the time he’s below in the training yard,” Skagi said. “That’s Tower Athanon,” he added, pointing to the fenced obsidian. He turned and looked to the tower where Ashok had awoken. “Tower Makthar, the temple home,�
�� he continued. “And in the middle, Tower Pyton and Hevalor, the trade houses.”

  Ashok repeated the names and functions of each tower in his head. The warriors were young, like him, but too eager, too trusting. In his own enclave, they would have been killed long before for these weaknesses.

  They reached the outer wall. Guard posts had been set up at various points at the base of the wall and on it. Ashok counted slowly, keeping track of the shadar-kai moving along the wall.

  “Convinced?” Cree asked, breaking Ashok’s concentration.

  “Of the might of Ikemmu? Yes,” Ashok answered honestly.

  “Caravan inbound!”

  The shout came from the south. It was picked up by the other guards and carried the length of the wall.

  Cree turned his attention from Ashok. “How far?” he called up to the nearest guard.

  “Won’t be long,” came the reply. “They’re moving fast.”

  “Ready the gate!” came a voice.

  Ashok, Cree, and Skagi turned to see a woman standing at the center of the wall near the gate. Her head was shaved, and a tattoo like raking claws covered the back of her bare skull. She wore gray robes with black sleeves and gazed out over the wall, her black eyes unfocused.

  “That’s the Sworn of the wall,” Cree said, pointing to the woman. “Neimal the witch. She holds the flame. No one enters the city without her leave.”

  “Is she watching the caravan?” Ashok asked.

  “It’s eating up the last dirt before the portal down to the city,” Skagi said. “We open it and the gate ahead of their coming, so the wagons won’t stall outside.”

  “Makes the beasts anxious,” Cree said.

  “Horses?” Ashok said with a snort. “They should be better trained.”

  Skagi laughed. Cree shook his head. “You’ll see,” he said.

  They waited at the base of the wall. Ashok looked up. The wall was thirty feet high, just as he’d judged. A pair of spike-studded wooden doors and an iron portcullis comprised the gate. Ten guards with longbows on the wall surrounded the entrance, and five more stood on the ground, directing foot traffic off the main path into the city. From their side of the city, Ashok could see how badly damaged most of the stone dwellings were.

  “There was a fire here,” Ashok said.

  The buildings, even those that had been repaired, were little more than hovels propped up against the greater towers. Ashok noted the dark scars where fire had touched the towers, though that damage was not nearly as severe as that where the flames had raked the lower city.

  “It happened before our time,” Skagi said.

  “Before you were born?” Ashok asked.

  “Before any of us,” Skagi said.

  “Caravan approaching!” called another voice.

  It was the Sworn’s voice that rang out over the wall. The woman raised her arms. In her left hand she held a black-hilted longsword. She made a gesture with her right hand, and the blade burst into purple flame.

  “A warning?” Ashok asked.

  “To any who would threaten the caravan or the city while the portal is open,” Cree said. “It’s under the witch’s protection now.”

  Ashok watched the portcullis go up and the doors slowly begin to open. Beyond them, a rutted path ran for a hundred feet or so and abruptly ended at a cavern wall. A raised stone arch was set into the wall, and on the keystone was the carved sword of Tempus, its blade pointed down toward the ground.

  The witch’s sword flashed, and the stone arch glowed in answer. As they watched, a line of horse-drawn wagons rumbled through the active portal and approached the city. Their drivers shouted greetings to the guards on the wall.

  Ashok’s heartbeat sped up. Though it was suicide to make a run for the gate, his body trembled with the need to act. He’d been contained too long. The time to escape was while the witch was watching the caravan, when all their attention was focused on that portal.

  “And no one is watching the wall,” he said.

  The brothers turned as one, but Ashok whipped his chain above his head and vanished, his wild laugh echoing in the air.

  He teleported to the top of the wall, reappearing in his wraith form, half walking, half flying. The wall was eight feet thick at its widest point, just before the gate. Beyond lay the portal to the Shadowfell and freedom.

  For a breath, Ashok’s ghostly presence went unnoticed by the guards, whose attention was fixed on the caravan.

  As substance returned to his flesh, Ashok began to run along the wall. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Cree and Skagi appear simultaneously behind him. The hunt was on, and he reveled in the danger.

  “Alarm, alarm!” Skagi cried. “The wall is breached!”

  Instantly, the warriors on the wall fell into formation, a single line of impenetrable shadows facing Ashok that were bow and spearmen, sword bearers and scouts, led by the bald witch with the flaming sword. She turned with a furious expression to see who had dared breach her line.

  The witch’s gaze fell on Ashok. Her lips pulled back over her teeth in a wicked smile as she pointed the flaming sword at him. He thought he could feel the arcane heat.

  “Take him,” she said, a command that carried up and down the line.

  The warriors nearest Ashok surrounded him in a half circle, giving him no room to run except back into the city. Ashok struck out with his chain, tangling it with a warrior’s blade. He jerked the man forward and punched him in the face. The warrior went down on his knees, exposed, but Ashok had no interest in killing him. He was focused on the hole the man had left behind. Other warriors tried to close the gap, but Ashok freed his chain and whipped again-two quick attacks that slashed across armor, ringing sparks and distracting them just enough for Ashok to plunge through the gap.

  He had nowhere to go but the open air.

  Behind him, one of the warriors grabbed the loose end of his chain, intending to snap him back, Ashok thought, like an animal on a tether. He dropped his end of the chain, drew his curved dagger, and jumped. He teleported in midair, aiming for the caravan and its horses.

  Ashok landed beside one of the wagons. He had only a few breaths before his wraith form solidified. At that point, he could expect arrows to rain down from the wall and pin his corpse to the ground. If he could get to a horse first, use it as cover, or find a hostage …

  A scream tore through the air. The sound, at once deep and shrill, the scream of a dying warrior, pierced the veil that held Ashok’s spirit form. His ears rang, and a wave of terror rolled across him. The cry froze Ashok, scattering his thoughts like ashes.

  He pivoted to stare at an iron cage tied to the lead wagon. Behind the bars a black, equine shape towered over him, its hooves striking bronze sparks against the metal. But there were no shoes on the beast to make the fire. Its flame came from within.

  The nightmare swiveled its head in the confined space to stare at Ashok through slitted, crimson lights-eyes that had no whites, no room for emotion. But its presence, the aura of terror that bled from the creature conveyed enough. Steam clouds rose from its nostrils, and within the dark cage, fire ran up thick strands of mane, turning them to gold, the horse hair swallowed by embers.

  Ashok, caught by the crimson-eyed menace, didn’t realize that his form had solidified. He raised his hands, his fingers flexing, when he realized the truth. He looked up at the wall. The shadar-kai archers had their bows trained on him, as he’d expected. But they didn’t fire. The witch was among them, coldly furious, but she held a hand in the air, staying the attack.

  Skagi and Cree appeared in front of him. Insubstantial, they caged him with the nightmare at his back. Ashok backed up a step and halted, aware of the nightmare’s presence like a blade out of reach. Steam kissed the tender flesh between his shoulder blades.

  “You won’t kill me,” he said to their spirit forms. He could hardly believe it himself as he looked up at the line of death on the wall, the witch with her flaming sword and barely contained wrat
h, ready to send the fire down and smite him. He thrilled to the moment, how close he’d driven them to the kill, and his heart pounded with exhilaration. “You’ve been ordered not to kill me-by Uwan,” he realized. “Why?”

  The wraiths became flesh, and Skagi raised his falchion. “You don’t know what you’re doing, little Blite. Come with us now, if you don’t want-”

  “It to hurt?” Ashok said as he opened his arms and stared down the warriors. “Come ahead. Come ahead!”

  Cree was on him from the side. Ashok dodged the first katar and looked for the second, but it wasn’t in Cree’s hand. Ashok twisted, trying to find an opening to get around the man, but Skagi darted in from the left and grabbed him by the throat. With his empty hand, Cree got him by the right forearm. Together they drove him back against the cage bars.

  Iron bit into Ashok’s flesh, sending numbing waves down his spine. His skull sang with pain, and cloying ash filled his nostrils. The nightmare whinnied its terrible shriek again, but Skagi and Cree did nothing more than wince. Ashok let his knees buckle as the dark horse reared, striking its hooves against the cage bars inches from Ashok’s head.

  “No you don’t,” Skagi said, not loosening his grip. “It’ll take more screams than that to break you, I’ll bet any sum.”

  Cree grabbed Ashok’s shoulder, and with Skagi’s hand still at his throat they turned him to face the nightmare.

  Blood crusted its withers, and the fetlocks kicked up ash when the creature stamped its feet. Forced to face the menace, Ashok clicked his tongue, as he might to a riding horse.

  “Well met, slave,” he said, his lips cracking in the dry, hot air. “They caught you too, eh?”

  Steam hissed, making his eyes water. Sound rumbled in the nightmare’s chest. It paced forward, bones clanging against iron, and Ashok was lost in the crimson radiance of its eyes. The light fed the fires in its mane, burning but never destroying.

  “He should be unconscious by now,” Skagi said. His voice was barely audible for the roaring in Ashok’s ears. He fought the palpable terror emanating from the nightmare’s body.