Disciple of Vengeance by CC Rasmussen (phonics readers .txt) 📕

and mercenaries looking for their next score. If the Arawat has anyone waiting for you anywhere, they’ll be waiting for you there.”

“Maybe,” Janis said. “But we don’t have time to get over the Peaks. Orinax knows we’re coming. Our only hope is to get to Vrear in time to catch him.”

Sciana stood up. “If you wish to take the advice of this boy over my own, so be it. You’ve taken your own council as it is. My job was to get you to B’lac. I’ve done that. You don’t need me here anymore.”

With that, she picked up her things and walked into the dark. “Sciana?” Ruck asked. “Don’t go. I’m sorry.”

Janis sighed. If there was trouble in the Ridge, Sciana was their best chance to elude or survive it. More than that, she was the only reason he’d survived his engagement with the mage. Despite his raw power, he was still a novice, and he couldn’t depend on his old Shadowstalker skills given his still damaged state.

“Wait,” Janis said. Her footsteps stopped. She stood in silhouette against the starry sky, her outline encased in silver light, hair like a waterfall of shadow. “You won’t survive out here.”

“I won’t survive with you either, it seems.”

“You and I have a deal.”

“Deal’s off,” she said. “It’s already cost me more than it’s worth. However much we wanted to profit off of your victory against this wizard, it’s obvious you’re as possessed and wretched as he is.”

“A duty, then, to get me to Brethor.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You dare speak to me of duty? You’ve spurned him the same as you spurned everything in your life, even your own soul.”

“But not my sister.” She didn’t move as she considered this. “My duty was to protecting my family. I remember that, now. I failed, but I can rescue her. Brethor’s duty is the same, and so is yours.” Janis walked closer and touched her shoulder. “I apologize for all that happened back there.”

She shrugged him off. “Do you? My horses are dead, and for what? So you could feed that creature encased where your heart should be?” She shook her head. “Eli believed you to be someone we could at least work with. I see now his optimism got the better of him. You’ll never return to J’Soon. Our caravan will have to come to terms with the Arawat to survive.”

He lowered his head and sighed. “I need your help.”

“And who are you to ask for it?”

“Someone who loves and wants to save his sister.” He looked back up at her, could see even in the dim light that he had her attention. It was manipulative, but it was also true.

“I don’t know her. How am I supposed to trust your impression of her when you live as you do?”

He could feel the edge of her breath on his face. “Because I’ve already sacrificed everything I am to save her. The Arawat will punish everyone who had dealings with my family, your caravan included. But you can hurt them first, or at least return with something to help you survive the coming fight.” He gripped her shoulder again. This time, she didn’t pull away. “Please.”

“Going through the pass is suicide,” she said.

“Okay,” Janis said. “We’ll go over the Peaks.”

That night he lay awake, his mind alive with impressions from the transponder and fractured memories from his past. What had the conversation with Renea meant? Had the transponder shown him one of her memories? He certainly didn’t recognize himself in it. He’d seemed arrogant and cynical. Perhaps he had been. He’d also seen Brethor in there. Had felt his presence even when facing Orinax on the bridge outside of Vrear. The other, darker and more powerful presence had overshadowed it, but it had been there all the same. Was Brethor close? He would’ve learned of Qinra’s attack in B’lac if he’d arrived there tonight. Perhaps he was after Orinax himself? What was the presence behind Orinax? Or was it the other way around? Orinax was a wizard, not a sorcerer or mage. He was accustomed to dominating the minds of lesser Lethi and even gods in the Shimmer. Was he controlling something that could scare even a member of the Yabboleth like Qinra? Or was he in league with it?

Janis heard a footstep nearby. Brethor came to him in a flash, watching and commanding as Janis failed again to avoid being surprised in the night during training. He found the dagger at his belt with his left hand, right pinioned to the ground ready to launch him into an attack, when he felt Sciana lean close to him in the dark. She eyed him over the blade. “It’s cold. Better not to be spread out. Do you have room?” He lowered the dagger and nodded. She sidled up next to him. “Don’t get any ideas,” she said.

“Of course not.”

She pressed close. He stared up at the sky above. “You don’t remember who you were, do you? Who Brethor was, what your family was?”

He sighed. “No.”

“Eli claims it happens sometimes to those near death.”

“I wasn’t near death, I was dead.”

She slid an arm off his chest. They listened to each other’s breaths. “I met you years ago.”

“Really?”

“Elisham came to pay tribute to House Aphora to earn your family’s protection. There were a dozen caravanserai there. You were standing on a platform as the serai bowed and presented their gifts to the great Dewan. I remember hating you.”

Janis smirked. “Why?”

“You were so… certain of yourself. Of your place in the world. And yet you gave off such bitterness. I could tell you despised it.” He didn’t respond. She slid across to look up at him. “There isn’t much of that boy left in you now. You’re someone else, I think.”

“Better?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

She looked into his eyes. “Actual pain can bring real wisdom or terrible stupidity.”

“I don’t want to be stupid.”

“Then stop.”

“Maybe with your help…”

They inched their lips closer and kissed. She pulled away. “I’m not here for you,” she whispered. “But for me.”

She slipped a hand across his chest, her breath close. He lifted his face, stretching his left hand from his dagger to her neck and bringing her to him. When they finished, she regarded the sky with him. “The Uma believe that the Waste was once a jungle and that someday it will be again.”

“What do you believe?”

“That we live in the world we created, and that all we can do is hope to survive it.” She got up and got dressed again. “You’re making the right choice about the Ridge. The Peaks are tough enough.”

He was about to respond when the shadows shifted behind her. He grabbed her leg and yanked it, pulling her to the ground as two crossbow bolts whistled through the air. She rolled to the side as he grabbed his dagger and ran. It was a figure dressed in light armor and wearing a cloth mask. He unsheathed his sword as Janis hurtled towards him, swinging it up and fast. Janis slid below the swipe and stabbed up with his dagger, catching the man in his chest. His attacker howled and brought his sword down. It would’ve sliced his back but for the arrow that plunged into the man’s face, knocking him back. Janis looked back and nodded at Sciana. The shadows shifted behind her again. “Behind you,” he yelled. She turned and fired into the dark. Janis ran towards her as she fired again, then hissed.

The figure jumped on a small chariot and buzzed off into the deep night. “Hussars,” Sciana said.

“What’s going on?” Ruck said. Janis turned to the boy as he saw the corpse and jumped back. “Can we catch him?” Janis asked.

Sciana shook her head. “These were scouts. The lance won’t be far.”

“Whoa, a Hussar,” Ruck said. Sciana lowered her bow.

“We have to make for the Ridge.”

“You said it was suicide.”

She pulled her leather cuirass over her head as Ruck patted the dead Waster’s pockets. “We don’t have a choice, now. They’d overtake us in the Peaks.”

“You’ve seen what I’m capable of.”

“I’ve seen what they’re capable of, too. There are too many. Our only chance is in the Ridge.” She tightened her right arm pad. “You’re going to get your way.”

They stamped out the glowing cinders, loaded the chariot, and set off. It was the deep dark of early morning as they approached the distant ridge. It looked like a long wall stretching east towards the horizon. Sciana clumped arrows in tight packets along the back of the chariot. Ruck sat quietly in the front seat. The eastern sun was peeking out from below the horizon, its rays illuminating the entrance to the Ridge. It was the Gash, a crack in the otherwise daunting cliffs of the Scythian Ridge that stretched from the mountain range to the west and ended at Lake Or’Sa to the east. The Waste became sandier as they approached as if it didn’t want them to leave. Ruck bailed out dirt and grit from their seats as Sciana leaned forward.

“They’re coming,” she said. He turned and looked back. Beyond the orange-yellow sands of the Wastes, past the milky heatwaves dissipating off of the dead earth, a clump of shadows was growing. He only looked a second, but it was enough to know that the cloud rising above them wasn’t a trick of the light. It was the great plume of dust their chariots were blowing into the sky. He turned back. The Gash looked quiet and small against the expanse of the Ridge, but he could tell it was at least half a league wide.

“We’ll make it.”

“Don’t stop. Not for anything,” she said. As they got closer, he could make out small landings and ridges rippling either side of the canyon as the Gash opened up beyond its entrance. Perfect hiding spots for anyone laying an ambush.

“How long is it?”

“Roughly two leagues,” she said. “If we don’t make it through in less than an hour, we won’t make it at all.”

“Pay attention to everything going on with this thing. Understand?” Ruck nodded, terror overtaking him. Janis patted his back. “I’m going to get us through,” he said.

Sciana tapped the back of his seat, then brought both hands on either of the rails as she hunched in the back. Janis pressed down even harder on the pedal as they approached the rift in the cliffside, each wall of the ridge rising at least five stories above them on either side. There was no trading traffic. No line to wait in other than an overturned cart lying half-buried in the sand, its side punctured open. He saw Ruck regard it out of the corner of his eyes.

“Stay focused,” he said as they roared into the Gash. The suns disappeared behind the cliffs above them.

Sounds echoed off the cliff walls. They bounced, crunching rock beneath them. The chariot’s thrumming rebounded off the cliffs, smothering them in the sound of their passage. If there was anyone that didn’t know about them already, they would soon.

They hit their first obstacle, a tight curve that forced him to plunge between a small gap. A sapien wearing leather armor and a metal helmet popped up on the ridge above and hurled a long javelin at them. Janis threw up his hand just as the man let it go, aiming for the tight gap just ahead of them. He focused, projecting a quick telekinetic blast that caught the thing in midair, flinging it away. It exploded against the cliff behind them, throwing their attacker back. Then they were through the gap, and all hell broke loose.

Masked