The Omaja Stone Read online

  Kill them all; feed on their flesh! Ujagar’s voice chanted. The griffon vulture screeched furiously against the wind, eager to sink her talons into Yavi first. She would finish the job on that traitor this time.

  Caladian Road was mostly quiet and still. Gerynwid flew for a couple of hours before sensing movement on the ground below and swooping lower to inspect. Three horses with cloaked riders galloped north. She could make out Yavi’s swords glinting in the moonlight, and Yavi’s bow slung across his back. The girl was only carrying her small dagger; she would be easy to deal with after killing the twins. Gerynwid flew swiftly downward to meet them on the road, shapeshifting again on the way.

  #

  The dragon lighted on the road in front of Jiandra and the twins. The horses spooked and reared, whinnying and pawing at the air. Otto tossed Jiandra from the saddle and she skidded into the underbrush on the side of the road. She rolled over quickly to see Yajna and Yavi leap off their horses and land on their feet. Yavi whirled around, drawing his scimitars with both hands while Yajna stayed behind him, readying his bow with an arrow.

  The dragon roared, spewing forth a powerful shaft of flames, then ducked her head and knocked Yavi backwards several feet with her nose. His swords clanged to the ground.

  As she stomped heavily toward Yavi, Yajna strung and shot three arrows at the dragon’s head in succession. Two of them bounced off her scaly armor and fell uselessly onto the road; one struck the flesh of her neck.

  The dragon shrieked and jerked the arrow out, then reached down and grabbed Yavi in her talons, picking him up off the ground. She raised him to her eye level while he struggled to free himself.

  Yajna drew his dagger and looked over his shoulder. “Run, Jiandra! Go!” He rushed the dragon, using all his strength to stab into one of her hind legs with the blade. The dragon stumbled a bit, but maintained her grip on Yavi. She bent her head to shove Yajna aside, sending him skidding several feet on his back. His bow and arrows scattered away from his reach.

  The dragon opened her jaws and spewed flames down on Yajna. His leather cuirass fell away from his body in flaming shreds as he rolled over and dragged himself toward the trees. Still holding Yavi in her grip, the dragon drew in a breath and blasted Yajna a second time, completely dousing him in fire and holding it on him for what seemed like an eternity. The exposed skin on his back turned black and bloody.

  “Noooo!” Jiandra raised her dagger and made a mad rush at the dragon, bracing her arms to stab into it with all her strength. As she hit against the hard scales and staggered back, the Omaja stone lifted itself away from the dragon’s neck and strained on its chain toward her, as if attracted by a magnet.

  Yavi saw it. “Mahitha, toss me your dagger!” he choked out. His face was twisted in pain as he stretched a hand down toward her. “Toss it up to me!”

  She tossed the dagger upwards, praying Yavi could catch it without cutting himself. He reached out and grabbed it by the hilt, then used it to hook and pull through the thick chain that held the stone around the dragon’s neck. Miraculously, it broke. Jiandra reached up as far as she could, and the Omaja flew forcefully into her palm.

  The dragon roared in anger, sank her talons through Yavi’s armor, and flung his limp body to the ground just before it shrank back into Gerynwid’s human form. The sorceress fell to her knees, coughing and sputtering.

  Jiandra looked back at Yajna’s limp, burnt body in the distance. Yavi was closer, and he could distract Gerynwid while she tried to heal Yajna. She ran to grasp Yavi’s shoulder, focusing Healing with all her might. To her relief, his gashes and wounds disappeared, and he pushed himself to his feet, his armor hanging in tatters.

  “Keep her busy! Don’t look back!” Jiandra screamed at him as she ran toward Yajna. She reached his badly burnt, immobile body and laid her hand on his charred, bloodied back, focusing Healing.

  He didn’t move.

  “Come on, Yajna—come on,” she sobbed, desperately gripping the Omaja tighter. “There has to be some life left. Please, Zehu, help us, please…”

  Behind her, Gerynwid stretched her hands out toward Yavi, readying her lightning bolt.

  Finally, Yajna’s burned flesh began to transform to new again, his wounds closed over, and he rolled slowly onto his back. His silver eyes opened, blinking up at her, dazed.

  “You’re alive!” She touched his chest and directed more Healing until he sat up.

  They heard a loud zap of electricity behind them. Yavi dodged the lightning bolt and lunged for Gerynwid, swinging both scimitars. They sliced into her chest and abdomen, and she screamed in fury. She looked down at herself, clutched her abdomen with one shaking hand, and raised the other to try to direct another bolt at Yavi.

  Yajna pushed himself to his feet, scooped up his bow, strung an arrow, and aimed. The arrow zinged through the air and struck Gerynwid in the left eye, causing her to reel. Yajna snatched another arrow off the ground and strung it. It pierced the sorceress’s neck, hitting an artery. She reeled as a torrent of blood spurted out of the wound.

  Yavi let out a fierce cry and charged, knocking her onto her back. He crisscrossed his scimitars to slice off the sorceress’s head, then kicked it into the ditch. He swiped at the sweat and blood on his brow with his sleeve as he walked back to Jiandra and Yajna.

  “We did it. You got the stone, Mahitha.”

  Jiandra smiled tearfully. Yajna pulled her into his arms, and buried his face against her neck.

  Yavi came closer and wrapped his arms around them both.

  #

  At daybreak they reached the edge of Frocklin Grove, exhausted and grimy with soot, bloodstains, and sweat.

  Jiandra called out to her male companions. “Let’s stop in the village and rest the horses. We can replace your armor at the leather tanner. I have some coin.”

  “Do you think he will sell armor to a couple of Nandals?” Yavi asked.

  “He’s not selling it to Nandals; he’s selling it to me,” she huffed.

  The twins smiled.

  Jiandra sped up a bit to pass them. “Let me ride ahead in town, so that it looks like you’re with me. In case there’s still anti-refugee feelings here.”

  The town crier was up early, belting out the news of the hour in the town square: “War coming to Villeleia from the northeast! Toledano’s Royal Army is marching from Kingston!”

  “The castle courier passed through here already,” Jiandra called over her shoulder. “That’s good.”

  As she and the twins rode farther into the village, a guard on horseback trotted closer, frowning. He moved his hand to the hilt of his sword.

  “Ho, there! Nandals! What is your business here?”

  “Hold your peace, sir,” Jiandra spoke up. “I am Jiandra Stovy; these men are my companions. We’ve been sent by the queen to scout ahead of the army. We are on our way to Caladia. We have a letter of commission from the head of the council.” She produced it from her pouch.

  The guard took the rolled-up parchment, eyeing Yajna’s bare chest and Yavi’s torn armor suspiciously. “These men appear to have been in a battle already.”

  “We were attacked by Gerynwid the Shapeshifter on Caladian Road on the way here, just a few hours ago,” she explained.

  The guard looked up. “You fought with the Sorceress of Caladia?”

  “Yes, sir. We were able to kill her but we barely escaped with our lives. She destroyed their armor, so we need to buy replacements.”

  “Killed the Sorceress? Am I supposed to believe that?”

  “Makes no difference to me whether you believe it or not,” Jiandra retorted. “Look, we simply wish to visit the leather tanner, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  The guard handed her back the letter. “All right. Move along.”

  Jiandra nudged Otto forward, and they headed for the tanner’s shop. The tanner didn’t seem to mind that there were Nandals in the party as long as there was coin to be had. Jiandra purchased a cuirass for each of them, ne
w breeches for Yajna, and a leather cord for the Omaja so that she could string it around her neck. The tanner offered to do a few quick repairs on Yavi’s breeches and their boots before they left.

  They rode away from Frocklin Grove under the watchful eye of the village guards. They came to the bridge over the river north of Frocklin Grove and stopped to water and graze the horses for a moment while the three of them sat on the grassy bank.

  Yavi munched on some walnuts from his pack. “Five or six more hours of hard riding to Caladia. If we wish to arrive ahead of the Black Armies.”

  Jiandra sipped water from her cup. “What do you know about the Black Armies? What are their capabilities?”

  Yajna spoke up. “Twenty thousand highly trained warriors in Thakur’s elite army. It’s the only decent-paying work in Nandala at the moment, and hordes of young men compete in grueling tests of bravery and strength, often killing each other in the process, in order to receive an appointment to their ranks.”

  “Why are they called black?”

  “They wear black armor, either made of ebony for the Warrior Army or black leather for the Army of Assassins.”

  “So the two of you were in the Army of Assassins?”

  “Yes.” He sipped some water. “We competed and received appointments, then rose through the ranks of the Assassin Army until we were considered the Black Army’s best. That’s why Thakur sent us to Villeleia to kill Solange.”

  “I see,” Jiandra nodded. “So you know the Black Armies well.”

  Yavi answered. “Their structures, capabilities, strategies, numbers. We know everything from the inside out.”

  “That’s good. It sounds like we need all the advantages we can get.”

  Yajna reached for her hand. “Jiandra, I swear that we will not allow Villeleia to be overrun by this evil tyrant and his armies. He would ravage your homeland just as he has destroyed ours. And now that the healing stone has come back to you, we’ll be strong enough to survive.” When he picked up the Omaja to examine it, his fingers lightly brushed the swell of her breast.

  “Brother, you’ll use any excuse to touch her lovely breasts,” Yavi accused.

  Yajna reached across her to punch his brother’s arm. “Watch what you are calling ‘lovely,’ brother.”

  “Ow! Well, they are, and I am watching.”

  Jiandra cleared her throat. “All right, perhaps we should stop embarrassing the females in the party and punching each other for a moment and get going.”

  “Yes, well said, Mahitha.” Yavi smirked at Yajna.

  “Bastard,” Yajna muttered under his breath. He helped Jiandra into her saddle. “You would never guess he is the eldest.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Near Caladia, Jiandra and the twins rounded a tree-lined bend in the road to see several riders on horseback galloping toward them. Yavi and Yajna hid their faces under their hoods.

  “Caladia is overrun! The Nandals are here!” The face of the man in front was ashen as he shouted frantically at them. “Turn around now! You must flee south!”

  “Wait! Stop!” Jiandra held up a hand to signal a halt. “Are the Nandal forces still in Caladia?”

  The riders rode past, never looking back.

  “Wait, tell us what happened!” she shouted at a second wave of desperate riders.

  At the rear of the group, a man rode past with a child clinging to his waist behind him. “They’re burning the city! Flee south!”

  When the riders were gone, Jiandra turned to the twins. “What now?”

  Yavi pushed his hood back. “If the Black Armies have arrived in Caladia already, they must have marched non-stop with very little rest for two days. They will need rest and food before making the journey south toward Kingston. Thakur will station some lookouts on the walls around Caladia and make camp outside the city.”

  “Will he send scouts ahead of his army?”

  “Perhaps. We should be on our guard.”

  They rode a few more miles farther north before encountering people fleeing on foot, screaming that Caladia was under siege. One woman was carrying an injured child in her arms, sobbing hysterically.

  Jiandra dismounted and stopped her. “Let me see your son!”

  The woman looked startled, but didn’t try to pull away. Jiandra held the Omaja and healed the boy. His eyes opened.

  “He’s…is he all right? Oh, thank you!” the woman cried.

  “What happened in Caladia?” Jiandra asked.

  “We were attacked by Nandala. Everyone in Caladia is dead!” The woman took off running before Jiandra could speak with her further.

  Everyone dead? As she climbed back into Otto’s saddle, Jiandra thought of the plump old doctor who had helped her and Rafe in the middle of the night.

  They continued riding toward Caladia. As they crested a hill, black smoke rose in the distance, and Jiandra’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach. Yavi glanced over his shoulder at her and Yajna, his expression grim.

  She shook her head. “I see it with my own eyes, but I can’t believe it. Villeleia has enjoyed peace and prosperity for so long, we don’t know what war looks like.”

  “It’s getting dark,” Yajna said after a moment. “Let’s find our old campsite in the woods, and then approach the city walls from that direction.”

  #

  A Nandalan soldier walked the perimeter of the wall above Caladia’s southern gate. When he looked the other way, Jiandra and Yavi moved stealthily through the trees toward the base of the wall. Yavi lifted Jiandra onto his back, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.

  From the shadows of the trees behind them, Yajna strung an arrow. It zinged into the night sky, arched up, and found its mark: the soldier’s exposed neck. He stiffened, then plummeted forward, falling the thirty feet to the soft grass below. Yajna replaced his bow on his back and ran across the open space to join her and Yavi at the base of the wall, then tossed a grappling hook up the side of the stone edifice.

  The hook held, and Yajna stepped aside so Yavi could climb up first with Jiandra in tow. She draped the leather cord holding the Omaja over his shoulder and gripped the stone in her hand, ready to heal as circumstances might require. When they reached the top, Yavi scanned the area, then pulled himself over the short wall to crouch in the shadows with Jiandra still clinging to his back. Yajna soon joined them. Yavi signaled him with his hand, indicating a guard who was approaching but had not spotted them yet. Yajna readied his bow, rose to his full height, and shot an arrow that sank into the man’s throat just between his helmet and his breastplate. The soldier tumbled backward with a grunt, grasping the arrow with both hands. After convulsing a couple of times, he fell limp.

  With Yavi still carrying Jiandra, the twins kept their heads low and scurried along the wall toward the east. When they reached the next guard post, they stopped to peer over the wall and down into the city. It was deathly quiet; there were several active fires burning in houses and shops, but the only movement was a lone dog sniffing along the ground below.

  They continued along the wall toward the gatehouse, keeping low in the shadows. Four or five Nandalan guards were stationed at the gate lookout post, scanning toward the south for any sign of northbound movement on Caladian Road.

  Yavi glanced over his shoulder at Yajna. “How many can you pick off before they see us?”

  “Two. The one in front, leaning over the wall and the man on his left.”

  “Mahitha, stay close behind me,” Yavi whispered, setting her down. He gave Yajna a nod.

  Yajna stood up and shot an arrow that struck the first man. He plummeted to the ground in front of the gate. The other soldiers leaned over to see, then a second one fell forward with Yajna’s arrow in the side of his neck. The three remaining men turned toward them just as Yavi stood and drew his scimitars in a fluid motion. Two of the Nandal soldiers drew swords and started toward him, and the third fumbled with his bow a moment before Yajna shot an arrow into his chest that kno
cked him back.

  Yavi struck down the first swordsman and shoved him over the outside wall, then traded a few thrusts and parries with the second man before slicing his throat open and pushing him over the wall as well. He motioned Jiandra and Yajna to duck down, and then peeped over the edge of the wall to where the dead guards had landed. A soldier was patrolling down below, approaching the fallen bodies from a distance, but wasn’t close enough to notice them yet.

  Yavi nodded to Yajna, who stood and took the man down with an arrow.

  “Let’s go.” Yavi hooked his line on the wall, gathered Jiandra onto his back, and checked again to make sure no one was patrolling the area immediately below. He lowered himself over the wall and slid down the rope quickly with her clinging to his neck and waist. At the bottom, he darted into the shadows of the nearest structure, the Caladian chapel, and set her on her feet. Yajna slipped down the wall, retrieved the hook and line, and was spotted by a Nandalan soldier coming around a corner.

  The soldier shouted something in Nandalan, and three more soldiers appeared behind him, swords drawn.

  Yavi drew a dagger. Jiandra ducked back against the wall to stay out of the way. Yajna killed two of the soldiers with arrows before Yavi leapt out of the shadows from behind them, grabbed the one nearest him, and sliced his throat. He pushed him aside, then drew a scimitar, whirled around, and sliced open the chest of the fourth man. That done, he and Yajna retreated into the dark recesses of the chapel’s portico.

  “Everyone all right?” Jiandra whispered.

  Yajna smiled down at her in the shadows and circled his hands around her hips under her cloak. “So far, so good.” He bent his head to brush a kiss against her lips.

  “Careful, Mahitha,” Yavi whispered. “Adrenaline turns him on.”

  Yajna grinned. “He’s just jealous.”

  Jiandra changed the subject, because she had an idea. “While we’re searching the city, perhaps I can use the Omaja to read a Black Army soldier’s thoughts, try to figure out what Thakur’s next move is.”