34
The door opened and feet pounded against the floor. Hands, cool-but-warm large hands, grasped his shoulders. Flinching, Hamasa looked up with dim, blurry eyes. Valerius had somehow gotten up the stairs faster than Arash, who was right behind him, frost crawling over his cheeks. Next to him, Marya was ashen, eyes too wide and mouth hanging open. Valerius shook him, forcing Hamasa’s blank gaze back to his dark, intense one. He was the only one in the room that showed no fear, only fierce and determined focus.
Hamasa leaned into Valerius’ hands. Breath shook out of his throat at last.
“Hamasa?” he demanded curtly. Hamasa blinked at Valerius and gulped down air. For a moment, that façade broke to show relief, then the mask of the Lance slammed back into place. “We need to get out of here. We’ll do the spell later.”
“You think that monster won’t sniff Hamasa out? The distance and the missing rohh might throw them off, but they’re on top of us!” Arash snapped, pupils slit like a cat’s and glowing.
“I have to go arone,” Hamasa said, lips numb and words hollow, eyes on Marya, then Valerius. “G-give m-me a horse and I’ll ride until he catches m-me.”
“That’s out of the question,” Valerius said hoarsely.
Hamasa stared, shoulders slumped and the all too obvious tautness of his face and trembling lips. Valerius scowled and got to his feet, dragging Hamasa up with him.
“We’re going to the horses. Now.”
“W-wait, b-but…”
Another roar shook the city and Hamasa let out a wispy, horrified whimper. He slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes closing, swallowing it down. All of them were running down the outside corridor and through the courtyard, ignoring the screams and shouts from the people still inside the hostal. In the stables, Nerva and the silver were already saddled and ready, shuffling and tossing their manes as their eyes rolled. Marya ran for the door as Valerius dropped Hamasa’s arm and went for the horse stalls. Her stream of loud curses had them all turning.
“Lances. They’re running towards the Great Road,” Marya told him, eyes still too wide.
“They’re going to protect the city from the Merciless,” Valerius said, jaw tensing. He led Nerva out of her stall and stared past Marya’s shoulders. “I should be with them.”
“We already went over this! We need you!” Marya shouted at him.
“Do you serve Hamasa or not?” Arash snarled. Valerius cast a cutting glance at him. Slowly, he nodded.
“But all those knights, they’ll…” Hamasa stammered.
“It’s what they’re trained to do,” Valerius said.
“It doesn’t matter, the Beast is here for me. They’ll raze the city and everyone in it!” Hamasa said.
“You’re right,” Arash said. His eyes closed and he took a breath, slow and deep. “I can hold him off for a few minutes, but you have to get out of here.”
“W-What? Arash, you don’t mean—” Hamasa gasped. An arm wrapped around his chest from behind and pulled him back.
“The sense of you is really weak. I’m a lot stronger, and a whole lot bigger. They’ll come after me first.” Arash turned on his heel, claws growing from his fingers and the white patches on his skin spreading.
“Arash, no, you can’t fight them on your own.”
“Get your rohh, Hamasa. I can handle this.”
Marya stared as Arash walked past her and out of sight.
“Get on the horse, Marya,” Valerius snapped. Marya jumped.
“Right, coming,” she yelped, rushing forward.
“He’s gonna die. Arash’s gonna die. I have to—” Hamasa babbled, hands scrabbling at the arm holding him. His skin began to heat and Valerius adjusted his arm away from any bare skin.
“You can’t change, my lord, so what can you do?” Valerius demanded. “The faster we find your emblem, the faster we can help Arash.”
Hamasa immediately slumped, head bowed and shoulders shaking. The hold across his chest wasn’t tight enough to hurt, but Hamasa couldn’t breathe. The vise kept squeezing tighter and harder. He wheezed and gasped, his whole body scalding and eyes stinging, and he couldn’t breathe.
The Merciless was here. Here.
And Arash was alone, risking his life for a selfish coward like Hamasa.
His knees were on the ground again and Valerius’ broad hand lay against the middle of his chest. Desperately wheezing, Hamasa grasped Valerius’ wrist, a hiss of someone else’s pain nothing more than a shuddering echo in his head. He curled around the hand on his chest and panted hoarsely. Gradually, the low rumble of Valerius’ voice made it through the raspy sound of Hamasa’s poor excuse for breaths.
“Slowly, Hamasa. Keep breathing in, and hold it–” Hamasa realized with groggy surprise that his body automatically did as Valerius directed. “–good, breathe out. Slowly. Try one more time.”
Hamasa closed his eyes, humiliation spreading like a rash under his skin. Once more he inhaled, held it, and exhaled in time with Valerius. He couldn’t force himself to raise his eyes. A screeching roar of fury broke overhead and with it the shouts of the Lances outside, the screams of the citizens, the clattering of hooves on cobbles. Hamasa’s breath hitched. Suddenly he was on his feet, Valerius shoving him into Marya’s arms.
“Get on the horse, ride towards the mountain away from the Road,” Valerius ordered.
“Didn’t we talk about you staying with us?” Marya asked furiously.
“I’m not following Arash,” Valerius said, scowling. He opened up a saddlebag and Hamasa caught sight of canvas and raw wool. “I’m not going out there without my armor. On the other side of the university, there’s a gate leading towards the old mountain pass and the Falls. Meet there and get out of here.”
Marya’s chin jutted out as she frowned. But she glanced at Hamasa’s wan face, and he stared back, mouth working around words he should say. Instead, Hamasa stood swaying in place, all his senses in the air above his head and beyond the ceiling. He could hear the beating of wings. The screaming of horses chilling his blood.
During the moments Hamasa stood fixated on the sounds above, Marya swung up onto the silver horse. He choked in surprise when her hand gripped the back of his poncho and yanked him up. Hamasa grabbed the saddle and heaved himself up behind her, letting her do most of the work. Marya snapped the reins with a shout. They barrelled out of the stables, ducking below the eaves. Hamasa twisted in the seat to stare behind him at Valerius tying thigh guards around his waist.
The silver’s ironshod hooves clopped over the road. The stragglers rushing through the streets dived out of their way. They were clutching bundles to their chests or holding on desperately to the person who ran beside them, adult and child alike. Birds of every color and size and lohas with their glittering gossamer wings streaked overhead. While the people were heading to the university and its sturdy walls that had stood for centuries, the birds and Others were heading towards the mountains.
“Are you all right, Asa?” Marya shouted over her shoulder. He swallowed dryly.
“Yeah, I’m all right,” he said.
But she was staring past him, upwards to the sky, and with a sinking feeling in his gut, Hamasa did the same. His guts twisted into knots at a massive black form blotting out the sky. Below it, the early morning sunlight glittered on the armor and weapons of the knights. From the very heart of the sun, a blinding white form dropped out of the sky. With a screech, Arash landed on the pitch-black dragon that roared and frothed green liquid from their maw. Arash looked fierce and beautiful in battle, as he always did, but he was also so small. Not even half the Merciless’ size. Hamasa gripped Marya’s vest in shaking hands, eyes and nose burning and breath too shallow.
The Merciless was a monster in comparison. Huge and menacing, with claws that glinted as brightly as Arash’s white scales even as far away as they were. A wingspan that could envelope the entire hostal they had stayed in. Scales so black they seemed to absorb the very light from the sky, darkening the city below impossibly. The Merciless. Unrelenting, pitiless, and stronger than Hamasa could have imagined. Phantom pains slithered over his arms and back and legs, across his right cheek and temple. A piercing ache that bubbled and hissed over his body in jagged lines and smears.
“Shit!” Marya bellowed. She kicked the silver’s side and the horse leapt forward. Hamasa pressed closer, clinging like a limpet, teeth rattling in his head.
An agonized scream rent the air and the ground shuddered under their feet. The thundering crash and rumble of a large body hitting the ground, destroying the buildings under it, had Hamasa spinning back around and gasping. The Merciless hovered in the air, roaring in glee as Arash shook off rubble and forced himself into flight. He raced away, jagged white lightning that disappeared into the bright sun overhead, the Merciless in hot pursuit.
“Arash…”
“Ow, ow, leggo!” Marya exclaimed, slapping at his arms around her waist and making the horse under them lose its step. Marya quickly grabbed hold of the reins and hissed between her teeth. “You’re hotter’n soup bubbling over. Hold on to the saddle!”
“I’m sorry!” Hamasa immediately grabbed the saddle under his butt. He didn’t even know how long he had been hot enough to burn. A shiny pink welt wrapped around a wrist sprang to mind. Valerius’ hand pressed to his chest and refusing to move away.
Just barely, Hamasa made out Marya’s voice, “I don’t like it.”
He leaned forward, ears straining, and caught sight of the frown on her dark, heavy-browed face. Luckily, Marya didn’t flinch away, so he must have gotten his body temperature under control. Before Hamasa could ask what she meant, Marya continued,
“They’re guleros, both of ‘em, but I don’t like leaving them behind. I should be fighting with ‘em. I’m not this kinda person. I don’t leave the fighting to others while I run. I’ve never done that.”
With those words ringing in his ears, Hamasa stared at what he could see of Marya’s face. All these weeks, all the things he’d learned and done, and here he was. Back at the beginning. Running. He looked ahead, watching as the university reared up in front of them. Unconsciously mirroring her, his jaw tensed, his brows pulling tight, eyes flashing as the sunlight broke through the mountains. In the distance, there was another roar, and the mists behind the tallest spires were banded in flickering rainbows. The front gates, massive cast iron things, were wide open, but Marya veered the silver horse around the side, following the walls that encircled most of the campus grounds. Giant cypresses swayed over the top of the walls, the rushing and roaring of water drowning out the cacophony of terrified Vallepidras citizens behind them.
They looked up to the peaks that seemed to curve overhead. The summits were already white with snow. As they rounded the university’s walls, they finally saw the Serra Falls in all its glory; the thundering spill of icy white water from the peak hundreds of leagues above to the frothing foam that ruffled the glassy sheen of the lake at the base. The avenue they clattered down was lined with the same enormous cypresses that grew inside the university walls and sloped upwards towards the bridge that led out of the city over the shallow but turbulent mouth of the Réo Largo. Marya and Hamasa gasped at the same time, their necks craning back and back, staring up the sheer majesty of the Falls, tasting the snowmelt on their lips as the mist dewed the air all around them. They could only stare in awe.
“Oh, órala,” Marya breathed. The roar of the Falls was so loud, so insistent, that her words were almost swallowed up by it. “I never seen a waterfall.”
“That is the largest one in Mekshi. You’ll never see another one like it,” Hamasa told her, heart thumping against his sternum.
Marya pulled the silver horse’s head gently around to look back. She tched loudly, hands tightening and loosing repetitively around the reins. “That gulero better catch up fast,” she burst out. She fidgeted and the horse shuffled under them with her, ears flicking back and forth. “What about that dragon? That was them, right? The Merciless?”
“Yes.”
“Shit, shit, shit! Are they gonna sniff you out? Like Arash said?”
Hamasa inhaled sharply, fingers curling around the edge of the saddle. “He was right about being a distraction,” he answered slowly. “If we make it into the mountains, that’ll hide us a bit more, but we should—”
He broke off as the horse beneath them shook its head, snorting and hoofing at the ground in agitation. Marya grunted as Hamasa bumped her back hard enough for them to wobble. When they straightened with matching puzzled frowns, Marya tapped her heels at the silver’s sides.
“Ay, hold now. Hold! Is this ‘cuz of the kick earlier? I’m sorry ‘bout that. I panicked. I promise not to kick you again,” Marya said, patting its neck a little hesitantly.
The horse’s ears flicked forward. With a suddenness that had both riders crying out and clutching desperately at whatever they could reach, the horse threw itself forward, returning down the avenue and deeper into the city.