4: Witches' Blood (17 page)

John lunged back. Dayyid pursued him with fast, sure strides and an expression of pleasure on his face. John’s heel hit the wall behind him. No further retreat in that direction.

Dayyid obviously saw as much as well and pressed his assault with a quick jab for John’s face.

John dropped to a crouch, feeling the sick cold of the Gray Space slash the air just above his head. He immediately pounced up, driving both fists into Dayyid’s exposed torso. Dayyid stumbled back and John bounded after him. He landed another powerful body blow to Dayyid’s chest and saw the look of pain and fury as he knocked the breath out of Dayyid. But in an instant Dayyid struck back with a hard kick into John’s right knee. Pain shot through John’s leg and he staggered.

Dayyid pressed his advantage, tearing open the Gray Space to create a Silence Knife. The air screamed and flames followed the arc of Dayyid’s fist as he plunged the Silence Knife down.

Two years ago John would have been too overwhelmed, too hurt and off balance to do anything but fall beneath the killing edge of Dayyid’s Silence Knife. But since then John had trained hard and constantly, not only against his fellow ushvun’im, but also against Dayyid’s ushiri’im.

They fought just as Dayyid fought, because he had trained them. Their speed and relentless attacks were Dayyid’s, but so too were their weaknesses. They never expected anyone to challenge their divine weapons; they could not seem to even imagine an attack across the line of their Silence Knives and Unseen Edges.

With a roar of sheer rage, John punched directly into Dayyid’s Silence Knife. Agonizing pain tore across the back of his hand, but John threw himself into the blow. Blood gushed from his hand and then the frigid cold of the Gray Space snapped closed and John’s bloody fist smashed into Dayyid’s jaw. Dayyid’s eyes went wide with shock.

John hooked Dayyid’s ankle with a fast kick and pulled him off his feet.

As Dayyid hit the practice mat flat on his back, John dropped to one knee, aiming a blow straight down into Dayyid’s exposed throat. A killing strike.

Then, reflexively, John pulled back. He wasn’t about to kill another human being, not even someone as cruel as Dayyid.

For a stunned instant he stared at Dayyid, horrified by what he had almost done. It had come so easily that John felt almost sick with himself. Dayyid stared back up at him, his dark eyes wide and his breath coming in gasps.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Idiot!” Before John could react, Dayyid brought up his leg and landed a solid kick into John’s stomach. John tumbled back and Dayyid rolled up to his feet. In an instant he stood over John with one foot placed on John’s neck.

“The win is mine,” Dayyid declared with a smirk.

“Yes,” John conceded before Dayyid placed any further weight on his neck. “The win is yours.”

Dayyid stepped back, allowing John to regain his feet.

The wound across the back of John’s hand hurt like hell but it didn’t seem too deep, despite the volume of blood spattered across the training mats.

John noted the numerous welts and scratches that stood out across both of Dayyid’s hands and forearms.

“Do you understand why I defeated you, Jahn?” Dayyid asked the question over his shoulder as he strode to the dressing table where his cassock and coat lay. He dressed quickly, hiding his injuries.

Because you’re a dick,
John thought, but he said nothing. The last thing he wanted was to start another fight.

“It is because I am a true servant of Parfir. My entire being is dedicated to him. I never have to question myself or fear that I am on the wrong path, because Parfir is with me in everything.” Dayyid looked up to the towering statue with an expression of reverence. Then he cast John a disdainful glance. “You have not taken Parfir into your heart, and so you question your actions. You hesitate in battle because you do not know if you are just or not. I never hesitate. That is why I beat you and why I will always beat you.”

John cradled his bleeding hand and glared at Dayyid’s back. Very briefly he imagined himself drawing his own knife and plunging it between Dayyid’s self-satisfied shoulder blades.

But John quickly stopped that line of thought.

He wasn’t here to fight the injustices of the Payshmura religion or to teach Dayyid some humility. He had come to Rathal’pesha to find a way for himself, Bill, and Laurie to escape this entire world. He’d promised to show Ravishan a kinder, better life in Nayeshi. No matter what he couldn’t lose sight of those things. He just needed to endure all of this. After all,
Ravishan had assured him that the issusha’im were closing in on the Rifter. It could be any day now. They would escape Basawar and he would never see Dayyid again.

John drew in a deep, calming breath and slowly released it.

“You’re right,” John told Dayyid.

“Of course I am.” Dayyid turned back to John with a smug expression. “These lessons will ensure that you never forget that.”

John lowered his gaze but couldn’t help noticing how gingerly Dayyid held his left hand. John suddenly realized that he must have hurt Dayyid badly when he’d punched through his Silence Knife. And then he recalled that brief expression of shock that had flickered across Dayyid’s face.

John bowed his head to hide his smile. Dayyid could talk all he liked about being Parfir’s holy servant, but for that instant at least, he had to have known that Parfir hadn’t been with him. Though he knew it was petty, John took more than a little consolation in the thought.

That become more true, especially as the weeks passed and his training with Dayyid intensified. He always conceded the win to Dayyid, but more and more often he exalted in those brief moments when he broke through Dayyid’s divine weapons and forced Dayyid to feel defeat.

As the months passed, spring grew into summer and even in the heights of the mountains, beds of berries ripened and the scents of fruit and flowers carried on warm winds.

Despite the balmy weather, John woke, shaking and clammy. He’d dreamed of the bones again. Their strange voices hissed and murmured through his groggy memory. He tried to recall the dream but it, like others, faded to fleeting impressions of black hollow eyes and thousands of skeletal hands searching for him. He’d been terrified, but now he couldn’t recall exactly why. It was something he was happy to forget.

He stared at the dim white expanses of the canvas panels that surrounded his bed. The first bright rays of morning light played across the cloth. The strong scents of other men’s bodies hung in the warm air of the dormitory. He thought suddenly of the one morning he’d woken with Ravishan in his arms. If only they could have lingered… Then his revere drifted to the few minutes he and Ravishan had stolen alone in the pine garden last evening.

Compared to the nights of easy, anonymous sex he’d known in Nayeshi the simple act of holding Ravishan in his arms should have felt dull, almost chaste. And yet the warmth and strength of Ravishan’s embrace had electrified John’s entire body. The smell of his skin, the feel of his fingers curling along the nape of John’s neck, even the soft rhythm of his breathing had suffused John with arousal.

This morning he allowed himself to remember and ease his desire.

At last he sat up and tossed his sticky blankets aside. His body ached a little as he stretched and washed at his water basin. Just looking over his chest and thighs, John could see where Dayyid liked to strike and where his own defenses were too slow. But he was improving. Most of his bruises were old and fading.

Somewhere nearby, birds called out. John listened to their tiny, shrill voices as he dressed. He recognized the songs. Brownish birds with black heads made them. Doubtless the two singing were males challenging one another for territories. By late summer they would be settled and much more quiet.

“If only Dayyid would have been satisfied with a song,” John mumbled to himself.

“He’s not a man like you and I,” Hann’yu had told John a month ago. “Dayyid doesn’t compromise. He doesn’t relent for the sake of human comfort or mercy. But he’s the most genuinely pious man I have ever known. It can make him hard on the people around him, but his only true concern is how best he can serve god.”

John had simply nodded at the time, but he had known that Hann’yu was wrong. Piety was not the cause of Dayyid’s brutality, but a tool with which he justified his abuse of those around him. John knew as much because he’d seen the best ideals of the Payshmura religion embodied by Samsango. Parfir’s edicts of generosity, humility and compassion moved Samsango to do what Dayyid never would: to celebrate the prowess of those who surpassed him while offering aid and sympathy to those beneath him. His serene piety at times made John wish he could believe in Parfir as Samsango did. Dayyid’s piety only made John want to get as far from him and his church as he could.

Today, at least, his wish would be granted. Hann’yu needed him to go down to Amura’taye and fetch supplies for the infirmary. One day down the mountain and one day back up. That meant two days free of Dayyid.

John finished cleaning his face and teeth and poured the used water into the rain gutter outside the window. The morning bells began to ring and John heard his fellow ushvun’im groaning and mumbling as they too arose from slumber. He made his way out of dormitories and back to the kitchens. The morning meals wouldn’t be ready for an hour. Fortunately, Samsango always left out bread and cold cheese for the ushvun’im who would be leaving for Amura’taye. John helped himself and then went out to join the other ushvun’im at the iron gate.

The sky was pale blue and cloudless. Woody herbs displayed yellow and violet blooms from where they nestled along the path. John brushed his hand against the bare stone of the mountain wall as he strode down the Thousand Steps.

The rock beneath his fingers was cold and hard and yet it struck John as fragile at the same time. There was brittleness in its nature, like the bones of an old woman; it felt aged and depleted.

John supposed he was projecting the decay he saw in Rathal’pesha and now below him in Amura’taye. The clear sky allowed him a sweeping view of the city. It stretched out beneath him like a map. He easily picked out the white curves of the inner city walls. They arched out and enclosed each other, reflecting the city’s growth and decline. He recognized the cluster of small, enclosed structures that would have been the first refuge of a few dozen farmers and herders. Larger walls and buildings spilled out from there. Clearly, Amura’taye had flourished once. Its walls swept and curled out over the entire side of the mountain.

But now wide stretches of the city stood abandoned and crumbling, like the collapsed walls in Candle Alley where he had first kissed Ravishan. Most of the buildings there had been deserted and derelict. Now, John picked out other districts that resembled abandoned ruins more than an inhabited urban area.

It was a backwater. More than one person had told him so. And seated so close to the Payshmura stronghold of Rathal’pesha, the tithes were strictly enforced. It was no wonder that the city, like Rathal’pesha itself, was being abandoned.

What young herder would choose to struggle for a living in a desolate, repressive land when there was the promise of an easier living to be made in a developing city like Nurjima? Stories of city lights, railroads and loom factories all attested to the rise of industry there.

At the same time John couldn’t help but wonder how many of those same herders might instead choose to join the Fai’daum and fight to destroy the theocracy that so relentlessly drained them of resources and drove them from their homes.

“It looks so peaceful from up here, doesn’t it?” an older ushvun’im commented to John.

“Yes, it does.” John turned his attention back to the men traveling with him.

“If you look just past the city wall there,” the man pointed to a tiny cluster of huts, “you can see what remains of my uncle’s farm.”

“He raised taye.” John guessed the obvious and the ushvun nodded.

“But the crops aren’t what they used to be. He moved to Gisa and left the land to me.” The ushvun gave a dry laugh. “As if I could afford to pay the tithe for a property… Still, it’s pretty, isn’t it, with the wild flowers all blooming across the old fields.”

“It is,” John agreed.

And soon other ushvun pointed out the farmlands or hill pastures that had once been their homes. John shared what he could of his own history as they descended.

His strides were naturally longer than those of the other ushvun’im, but he slowed to their pace, and when a gray-haired ushvun seemed to flag, John took the pack of oil jars that he’d been hauling to ease his burden. All of them then paused to share a flask of daru’sira.

When they reached Amura’taye, his fellow ushvun’im wished him luck in finding all of the herbs Hann’yu had requested, and one handed him a blessed stone to give to his sister. They had all heard that she had been unwell of late.

John accepted the stone and thanked them, though he knew Laurie would have no use for it. Then he marched off to find the medicinal supplies Hann’yu needed. He purchased boughs of pungent southern herbs, jars of arcane brown syrup and glistening, succulent green blossoms. Samsango’s knuckles had been bothering him recently, and so John added a jar of camphor-scented analgesic. The thick musty smells of the apothecaries clung to him. It reminded him of days he had spent wandering between the cramped shelves of used bookstores.