31
KALINDA
I dismount Chare and set foot on snowy ground. The falcon immediately spreads her massive wings and launches off. She soars west, her fiery feathers blending in with the sunset. After almost an entire day of flying, the sun is more than three-quarters eclipsed. By dawn tomorrow, a mere crescent will rise. If the sun rises at all . . .
Before Chare landed, I relied upon a bird’s-eye view of the area to search thoroughly for Udug within the frozen landscape. I did not see him. Tugging the bearskin closer, I hike over the hill, away from the frozen lake, past the burned forest, to the remains of the Sisterhood temple. The smoldering heat has gone. Ash and snow blanket the debris of what was the north tower. Part of the blackened piles of stone crumbled down the cliff to the gully below. I hold in tears. The tragic end of my home will never cease to devastate me.
Darkness falls, a crisp curtain of raw winter. My banked soul-fire simmers, sending heat to my extremities. I consumed all the food and water Tinley had in her saddlebag to stockpile my powers, and my inner star hums.
I traverse back to the skeletal woods and hunker down in my bearskin to wait for the stars. None come out to join me. Neither is the moon much company. Its weakening paleness provides no solace from the shadows. Anchored in the dark, I wait anxiously for the night to peel back its lips and bear fangs dripping of fate.
The sound of rocks sliding breaks the silence. I grip the cold handle of my mother’s dagger and whisper my full name, “Kalinda Zacharias.” Firmly grounded to my father’s ancient line of Burners and my mother’s sister warrior courage, I seek the scent of scorched sulfur.
Claws appear at the ledge of the cliff. A whitish demon with deformed features and hideous veined wings clambers up onto the ruins. I lower myself within the charred tree stumps. Udug extends his wings. The sharp bones stick up behind his head like a single set of antlers on a stag. He is jagged ice and splintering bones.
Udug jets into the sky and flies over the dead forest. I push through the trees, pursuing the flapping of his ugly wings. He lands near the shore of the frozen lake, its surface lit by the starving moon. I creep closer, quiet as my weight and caution can bear. Udug snaps his head up, revolves, and peers at me.
“Come to meet your master?” he sneers.
“We serve different gods.”
“Where are your gods now?” Udug spreads his arms and wings to the lost stars and fading moonlight, which is frailer than when night fell.
I leave the dead forest, dagger firmly grasped. “They’re watching over me.”
“They’ve abandoned you,” he counters. “Kur is the only god left here, and he has been restrained for too long.” Udug steps backward to the lake with his clawed feet. I pace him, questioning his route. Where is he going? “He will be your almighty master. With his return, conviction in things believed but never seen will be obsolete. You will have your god hereto and forever to rule over all flesh, in the flesh.”
“Mankind is not here to fulfill Kur’s bidding.”
“Do you not already live per your godly purpose? How will serving Kur be any different than living up to Anu’s demands? Unlike Anu, Kur will have no virtues for you to adhere to. Your purpose will be his.” Udug steps onto the ice. Not trusting the thickness or stability of it, I pursue him but remain close to shore. He edges out to the center of the lake. “I have no regrets or sorrow.” He throws out his wings and inhales the dark. “Through Kur, all will be free.”
Something hits the ice under my feet. I jolt and nearly slip and fall. Craggy rifts spear across the lake. I scramble back to land. Shadows dart under the breaking surface. Udug tarries on the lake, leering with snaggy teeth. Great fissures tear open the frozen sheet to the water below. Figures jump out in an explosion. I shield myself against raining shards of ice.
A trio of demons wades out of the waters of the craterous lake. The largest demon’s physique bulges of rocks. His giant frame is hardpacked and rigid as a mountain. His mouth is a slash, a grimace, and his eye sockets are crevices of nothing, like caverns. The demon lumbers closer, the ground trembling with each step.
The second biggest demon has a sinuous face like a dragon cobra, her scaly skin reminding me of a jungle crocodile’s. A thick, rough tail drags behind her, as long as she is tall. Her three-forked tongue flicks in the air. Its trio of sharp tips resemble an urumi, an advanced warrior weapon with whiplike blades.
The demon third in line comes ashore chomping on a snow trout. Her razor teeth rip through the fish’s flesh and bone. She bears resemblance to her aquatic prey: glassy, circular eyes, gills down her neck, finlike hands and feet, and iridescent scales. She swallows the trout’s head whole in one bite.
Good gods, the lake is the gate to the Void.
Udug floats over the broken ice to shore and points at the rock man. “Meet Asag.” Then the crocodile snake. “Edimmu.” Lastly, fish eyes. “Lilu.”
I push my powers into my hand, illuminating my quivering fingers, and carefully backtrack to the shadowed woods. Coming alone was a noble thought when I was up against a solitary demon. Confronting four demons by myself is lunacy.
Udug’s siblings glare at the night sky.
“The moon issss too bright,” Edimmu hisses, flicking her multiforked tongue.
“The celestial powers are failing,” Udug assures her.
Out of spite, Asag heaves a stone the size of my head at the moon, as though to knock it from its velvet curtain. His throw falls short, and he grumbles. I am less than ten paces from the cover of the forest when Edimmu tastes the air with her tongues.
“What’sss thisssss?” she asks.
Lilu sniffs, her neck gills flaring like nostrils. Her fish eyes roam to me. “It smells like . . . like us. Only is rotten.”
“She’s an offspring of Enlil,” Udug explains. “Kur wants her preserved.”
Asag answers, his voice a cavernous rumble. “You were supposed to bleed the light out of her before master arrives.”
Blue flames ignite in Udug’s hands. “We have time.”
Asag picks up a hefty rock along the shore and hurls it at me. I leap out of its way and blast a heatwave at him. It feels good to have my abilities back. My fire strikes his chest and disperses. He sustains a small scorch mark.
I rise from my crouch. Uh-oh.
Edimmu unrolls her long tongues and flicks the air between us like a whip. A powerful gust throws me backward into the trees. I hit a log hard. When I look up, unblinking fish eyes stare down at me. Lilu grabs me with slimy hands. My veins lurch, tangling and knotting painfully.
“I’ll leech the rotten light out of you,” Lilu says, her voice a watery gurgle.
I buck in agony as she coaxes out my blood. Droplets bead from my pores, draining my strength. I suffered this once. Never again.
I scorch my fire at her, through her scaly skin. Lilu shrieks and scuffles away. I lob another heatwave after her, but Asag blocks it with a huge rock.
Udug flies into me, slamming me into the ground. I try to burn the demon with my hands, but my fire does not harm him. “I will cleanse you of your conscience, dear sister.”
He starts to pour his cold-fire powers into me, but mighty gusts rip him off. Lying on my back, I clutch at the pain ebbing from my chest. Two Lestarian Navy vessels hover above, their multiplied ivory sails brimming in the high winds. I urge my mind to comprehend what I am seeing. The sea ship is flying.
Udug and his demon siblings retreat to the lakeshore. The vessels land near the road, and armed sailors shimmy down rope ladders. Several run to meet me. Deven and Ashwin lead the charge, Natesa and Yatin after them. Brac and Gemi take up the rear.
What in the skies . . . ? Captain Loc is a passenger of one of the vessels lowering itself to the ground. His crew of raiders, Opal, and Lestarian sailors navigates the navy ship, suspending it on their winds.
Udug and his demon siblings guard the lake, surveying the array of forces. They will not surrender their post unless we compel them.
“You brought the raiders?” I ask my friends, watching the ships land.
Deven looks me over with a troubled frown. I have stopped bleeding from every pore, but I must look a mess. He, however, is imposing in the strict lines of his navy-blue general’s jacket. “We needed Galers, so His Majesty bought their loyalty.”
“Temporarily,” Ashwin adds.
Admiral Rimba joins us, leading his trident-wielding men. Captain Loc and his raiders, a mishmash of rogue bhutas, also boost our ranks.
“Kalinda, what are those hideous things?” Natesa asks, as though the demons’ unsightliness were the worst side effect of their release.
“They’re Udug’s kin, here to guard the gate—the lake,” I emphasize and then explain what they are, in haste. “We have to vanquish them before the celestial lights go out.”
Deven eyes the failing moon. “Take your positions!” And then to Ashwin: “Your Majesty, stay at my right.”
Ashwin grips his sword too low on the hilt. He has little practice or skill with a khanda. The world has never been drearier, but my loved ones remind me the gods are on our side.
Deven raises his sword. “All forward!”
We have marched halfway to the lakeshore when visibility reduces to graininess and our enemies wane to murky shadows. The ground shakes, an ongoing quake that rattles my knees, and the center of the lake boils.
Udug and his siblings howl gleefully at the darkening sky. The lake simmers faster, sending rippling waves that spill onto the shore. I grip the sleeve of Deven’s wool jacket, fastening us together, as the moon and stars go under, drowned by the evernight.