The Exalting Read online

  But Norrians wanted nothing to do with her ability. Like Togath, they claimed strength came from not using it.

  To Dana, their way of thinking wasn’t about freedom and equality, as they claimed. It was pure jealousy and fear. Why couldn’t they see her power could help them, protect them? If she were chosen as ka, she could wield ten thousand times more will.

  Perhaps then, like the legends, her gaze would reach beyond Xahna.

  Right now, she just wished she could see beyond Norr.

  Or leave.

  She was still underage. It wasn’t an option. But just because she couldn’t leave didn’t mean she had to live under the delusion that she was a freak to be tamed.

  Dana clenched her fists. “Why?”

  Togath placed his hand on the table, a patronizing gesture like he was patting the head of a marmar. “Whether living in Norr is a curse or a blessing, you must deci—”

  “Ahhh!” Dana clutched her ribs and fell from her chair as a sharp pain shot through her side. She looked to the cabin door as her superior sifa flared defiantly from both sides of her head. Her gaze fixed with a sudden determination.

  “Dana, no! You can’t interfere with traps anymore. I helped you get away from those trappers, but if you leave now—”

  “It was an arrow, not a trap. The animal is still moving. I can save it.”

  The long pace of its desperate strides pulsed through her legs, as if she were bounding through the forest. It was a bird—the largest on Xahna.

  A greeder.

  The pain in its side stabbed at her. Dana could hardly breathe.

  Ka of Xahna—it hurts!

  Why would somebody shoot a greeder? Wild greeder were rare in mountains and far too valuable to kill—worth thousands of trader’s coins, possibly as much as a small house like her grandfather’s cabin.

  Whatever the hunter’s reason, Dana couldn’t bear the pain in her ribs where the arrow had ripped into the great bird’s side. She bolted out of Togath’s cabin and ran across the footpath and into the forest.

  Why is someone hunting a greeder in the forest at night?

  “Dana, come back!” Togath called from his doorway, his aged voice unable to project far. “You can resist this. Be strong!”

  But Togath couldn’t understand how this felt. He was not an adept like Dana and her older brother Tyrus.

  With the stabbing pain in her side wringing tears from her eyes, Dana couldn’t just sit there and feel the beautiful creature dying.

  Racing among the lower branches of the pine trees, the greeder’s labored breathing mingled with hers.

  “I’m coming,” she muttered breathlessly.

  A scamper hopped out from its hiding place onto a branch to watch her pass. This one she knew, though she had no space in her mind to hear its constant hunger. The frill-necked lizards thought only of food—like Tyrus, her older brother, who used his druidic sense for hunting.

  Dana felt the wounded greeder’s pace quickening. It had turned downhill. Through a gap in the canopy of pine needles, she spied a tall stone outcropping. The great, long-legged bird was headed for a cliff. If it leapt, it would glide too far for her to reach it in time to save it. She had a pouch with caiman powder in her jacket. She could stop the bleeding.

  Dana called out to the animal, pressing her mind and soul into the creature, knowing full well the effort would leave her with almost no will of her own.

  “Climb down!”

  The greeder turned aside as her forced thoughts overwhelmed its urge to leap from the precipice. The greeder headed instead down a narrow drainage on the near side of the cliff into a chute of broken shale. Its pursuer would never follow it down that. The archer would have to go around.

  The effort of willing the greeder toward her sapped Dana’s resolve almost instantly. She no longer had any desire to run. The natural urge to rest her legs and catch her breath smothered all other desires. Her feet slowed. Soon she was walking, distracted by the dark sky and pine needles on the ground.

  “Keep going,” she muttered, her own voice sounding rather unconvincing.

  Be strong. Her grandfather’s voice echoed in her head, then her conscience.

  Maybe I should do the fast more often.

  Fighting the urge to stop entirely, Dana started ahead again, hurrying for the base of the cliff, where the six-foot-tall greeder would emerge.

  As it neared, her sensations merged with those of the greeder. Her feet felt as if they had long-toed claws that slid over loose pieces of broken shale. She felt the greeder struggling for balance on the rockslide. But the most distinct feeling was the tremendous pressure on her back.

  It’s carrying someone.

  And that begged another question.

  Who would shoot at a man on a greeder? One of the rangers?

  The rider might be a dangerous criminal. That was reason enough to turn back, but this greeder felt unusually loyal to its beloved rider. Dana trusted the judgement of a greeder better than most people she knew.

  I should help him.

  No longer feeding her will into the huge bird, Dana felt her own self-control recovering gradually. Her pace quickened until her leather-soled shoes sprinted over the poor alkaline soil of the alpine forest.

  As though a painted curtain hung in front of her, Dana spied a hazy vision of what the greeder was seeing: a junction at the base of the chute.

  “This way,” she muttered, again channeling resolve into its weary, panicked mind. “Come to me.”

  The greeder turned toward Dana.

  Rounding a boulder, she caught sight of the animal. Scintillating black and green feathers covered its head and long neck. Bright white primaries graced the tips of its half-extended wings. A cloaked rider sat on its back in a saddle. The greeder stumbled over a root. It caught its footing but swerved awkwardly against the trunk of a tall pine.

  “No!”

  The arrow sticking from the greeder’s side struck the tree trunk and rammed further into the already weakened animal.

  The pain in her side flared like she had been stabbed through with a hot poker from a forge. A mingled sensation of warm and cool ran down her side, as blood gushed in pulses from the greeder.

  The arrow in its side had severed the artery that fed its massive legs.

  In two paces the large bird fell forward, rolling over its rider with the sickening crunch of bones.

  Dana gave a whimper of shock and covered her mouth. “Oh my . . .”

  Both rider and bird would be dead in moments.

  Dana raced forward, desperate thoughts filling her mind as she came to the scene. Pinned under the weight of his dying mount, the rider stretched out a wrinkled and weathered hand, his open mouth gasping for air that his broken body could not seem to take in. In his fingers, he held a small coin purse.

  Take it.

  The thought came to her mind clearly and with conviction. With her own will weakened, Dana yielded easily to the thought. She knelt beside him and took the small leather pouch. Within was a single object, not heavy enough to be gold. Her fingers traced the facets.

  A crystal.

  With a great struggle, the aged man spoke. His voice gurgled like a bellows half-filled with water. “Vetas-ka is coming.”

  Dana knew the title “ka” and what it meant. The very thought filled her with terror.

  Tears quivered in the corners of the man’s eyes. “Do not . . .” His voice choked on a gurgle of blood. “. . . let him get the stone.”

  “This is a bloodstone?” The urge to drop the pouch became almost overpowering.

  One of the gods was coming for it—a supreme.

  Dana shook her head in horror, her legs itching to flee. At the same time, a sense of possibility rushed through her. This was a chance to change her life forever.

  With the bloodstone she could become a ka, one of the Pantheon.

  The man’s trembling hand caught hers in a desperate grip. At his touch, a sensation of total peace washed h
er concerns away like a flowing tide, even as the man gave a gurgled rasp—his lungs were flooded. There was nothing she could do to save him.

  Words again flowed into her mind as easily as a daydream.

  He is coming for it. His kazen are not far. Run!

  Dana’s mind was a blur of questions, but she had no time to ask them. Giving the dying rider’s hand one last squeeze, Dana fled.

  Behind her, the nostrils high up on the greeder’s beak gave out one long breath—its last. The animal’s departing soul carried tendrils of her own beyond the veil, where she sensed the arrival of its friend.

  The rider had passed as well.

  Go in peace.

  The rider had been a good man. Behind that was the lingering impression left by what she now realized was the rider’s enchanting touch. She knew what he knew about Vetas-ka.

  He was a bloodthirsty demon.

  Dana’s resolve was now as solid as the ground beneath her feet. She clenched the pouch, realizing as she did, that she held the combined will of thousands of souls in her hand.

  A tainted bloodstone.

  Never use it, she told herself as increasing curiosity ate at her. The impression of Vetas-ka hung like a shadow over her heart. If she used the stone, what was to keep her from becoming like him? Years of Goodman Warv’s warnings about the dangers of the blood-binding echoed through her.

  The great abomination.

  But she couldn’t just let whoever had hunted the man steal it. It belonged to a city. Access to all those people’s wills was bound in this one object.

  The unmistakable baying of Torsican hunting hounds sounded behind her. Images of their serrated fangs, maned necks, and spine-tipped ears flashed into her mind.

  Dana’s sifa flattened to the sides of her neck at the chilling sound. Her people had originated long ago on the distant continent of Torsica. The call of the fierce pack-hunting Torsican hounds conjured primal fear.

  They’ll find the greeder. They’ll get my scent.

  Rather than continue downhill, the direction the greeder had been fleeing, Dana turned aside. Fear hastened her steps as she climbed a rise and circled away from Togath’s cabin. She had no desire to lead Vetas-ka’s acolytes onto her grandfather’s property.

  The dogs were surely faster than she was, but they could not outrun her at this altitude for long.

  Dana paced herself as she topped the rise. Moments later she descended behind the ridge and the sound of the hounds was lost, giving her a chance to think through a defense.

  If the dogs caught up, she might be able to convince one or two not to attack. But as a pack, their collective hunting instincts would overcome her suggestions.

  Dana sprinted for another quarter mile, her desperate thoughts of how to save her life constantly interrupted by the effort of avoiding tripping on the roots and rocks that leapt at her from the darkness.

  A long howl from a hound sent a tremor of terror down her spine. This time it was even louder.

  No. Please.

  The chorus of baying grew quickly as the swift dogs closed on her. She hadn’t gotten a sufficient lead to tire them.

  An idea struck her, a terrible one. She would never succeed trying to get the dogs to stop hunting.

  But I can give them another target.

  Dana winced at the thought of sacrificing another animal to save her life.

  But it was not just her life in the balance. The bloodstone carried a connection to every bound soul of an entire city.

  Dana reached out with her mind, seeking for an impressionable animal that would be large enough to interest the dogs.

  Nothing.

  No. There.

  A young three-horn bandeer was in a meadow two hundred yards away. It was lying down, hiding from the dogs.

  “Run this way!” she urged.

  It would not budge. She was too far, and her suggestion went against its basic instinct.

  Dana had only seconds before the baying hounds reached her.

  Fumbling with the tie on the purse, Dana opened the small leather pouch, shuddering as she fought sixteen years of indoctrination about the evils of the blood-binding.

  The bloodstones give the ka their power, virtually limitless will.

  Dana reached the meadow. A large hound emerged from the trees to her right, its jowls flapping as it bared its teeth and howled. Dana’s heart thudded in her chest. Exhausted, gasping panicked breaths, tears now spilled down her cheeks.

  I don’t want to die.

  Two more hounds burst from the trees to her left, joining the chorus as they spotted her.

  Her balance shifted unexpectedly, and the ground slammed into Dana’s face. With a mouthful of dirt and her hands tingling from the impact, she climbed to her knees.

  I didn’t trip, she thought. What happened?

  But Dana remembered the coin purse with the stone. She ran her hands over tufts of thin grass, searching frantically in the dirt for the pouch. Neither of the twin moons of Calett and Osoq had yet risen. The evening sky was already dark.

  Come on. Where is it!

  Her hand struck the pouch.

  “Don’t even think about touching that.” A man stepped out of the cover of the trees.

  “Leave me alone,” Dana whimpered, her fingers still on the bag.

  “I claim that stone in the name of Vetas-ka,” said the dark-haired man. His superior sifa rose at the back of his thick neck, the twined hair fanning in a posture of dominance. He was short, but nothing about his stature made him any less menacing.

  Dana glared at the bow slung over his shoulder. Running was no use.

  “Don’t make this any harder,” he added, “or you’ll end up like Sindar.”

  “Who is Sindar?” Dana said, desperate for some distraction as the dogs circled behind her, closing her exit.

  “The dead man you just robbed for that stone.”

  Dana wanted to point out that she had not stolen it, but the kazen reached out his hand, and suddenly she could not move.

  A warlock!

  Dana had met many adepts with the ability to channel their will into physical force or even heat, but never had she met any who could stop someone from even moving at such a distance. Dana struggled to move from her kneeling position as beads of sweat dripped from her forehead, stinging the scraped skin near the corner of her eye. Her muscles quivered against the invisible force that held her.

  “You have never felt the influence of a supreme?” said the man. “Vetas-ka will grant me as much will as I need to obtain that stone.”

  Dana reached out with her mind, searching the forest for help, finding only a few squirrels and an owl. “How does he know you won’t take the stone for yourself?” Dana said, trying to sow doubt. “Now that you’ve seen it, you’re a threat. Vetas-ka will claim the stone for himself and eliminate anyone who has seen it. You are as expendable as me.”

  The man gave a disgusted laugh. But there was something more than bravado. Dana sensed a touch of fear.

  It’s working.

  She struggled to move, forcing the man to feed out even more will to keep her arms and legs from moving.

  “Vetas-ka sees all,” he said. “My eyes are his eyes. My ears are his ears—yes, he knows your face now. Even if you were to escape, he would hunt you down to the ends of Xahna. You are powerless against him. There are six kazen in the forest at this very moment. Do you think you can defeat us all?”

  “You are merely a tool—a dog. Once your usefulness is gone, your ka will dispose of you.”

  “Blasphemy! When I deliver the stone, Vetas-ka will lift up his follower Omren among his children,” shouted the man. “I’m . . . sure of it.” His voice wavered with increasing doubt. Dana was no enchanter, but she knew this man’s resolve would grow weaker the longer he used his will to hold her.

  But he must have realized his mistake because he walked quickly forward.

  No!

  He seized her shoulder with one hand, and the pressure
pinning her body increased to a painful level, the physical contact amplifying the extent of his will as it did when Dana touched her brother’s slain game. The warlock’s other hand seized her by her sifa and yanked her head back.

  She cried out in pain, worrying that the sifa would tear away at the root, leaving her maimed for life.

  With one arm, the kazen flung Dana away from the pouch. Dana whirled in the air and landed hard on the ground. When she raised her throbbing head, the man who had called himself Omren was clutching the pouch and staring at her with calculated malice.

  “Flee while you have the chance,” Dana said in a desperate attempt to twist the man’s weakened will. “Vetas-ka will forsake you. He cares only for power. You are nothing to him.”

  “For that blasphemy, you will die.” Omren tied the pouch to his belt and reached for his bow and a single arrow. He drew and aimed at Dana’s heart.

  She tried to run, but his will held her like a snap-trap.

  Dana reached out with all her will as a hundred silent creatures in the forest gave their mute attention. Please, help me.

  A soaring feeling spread through Dana. Her eyes fixed on Omren’s, like a raptor descending on its prey.

  “In the name of Vetas-ka, I silence the blasphemer!” He sighted down the arrow.

  “There’s something you don’t know,” Dana said quickly.

  He didn’t flinch. “What?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Dana had nothing to say, nothing to make him hesitate. Her desperation reached out, pulling on anything—everything.

  Help me!

  The man’s eyes suddenly bulged in their sockets, the arrow launched harmlessly into the forest. His body collapsed to the ground, a horned atter owl clinging to his head.

  Dana gasped as the atter owl extracted its rear claws from the back of Omren’s skull and flapped away on silent wings.

  Not even the man’s dogs had heard the great winged predator approaching.

  “Ka of Xahna!” Dana could scarcely believe her luck. The owl had saved her. Dana raced forward, grabbed the fallen bow, nocked the arrow, and drew. She only managed three quarters of a full draw, but it was enough to convince the dogs that she was a threat. Dana sent out as powerful a mental warning as she could manage, and the hounds turned tail and fled.