Chapter 363 - Aioa part 11

We started across the wasteland towards home, casting off bits and pieces of our vanquished foes as we went. At first Vehnfear retrieved them back, wagging his tail excitedly, until I made the beast understand that we were not playing fetch with the body parts. Then we had to contend with Chaumas, who refused to give up Yul's head. He clung to his new pet as Sunni tried to take it away, screaming, "No! Mine! Mine!" But we finally pried the Eternal's head out of his arms, and I heaved it into the distance. Yul, I think, was relieved to be free of the crazy old man. The sun fell away behind the edge of the world and the heavens darkened. Straggling a little in our weariness, we marched south beneath a river of green fire.

Sometime in the middle of the night, as those bands of emerald light rippled across the firmament, Drago came to me to apologize. He had allowed Baalt and his men to slip past our guard and it weighed on his mind.

"You need not apologize," I said. "Our enemies are cunning. It ended well and that is all that matters. We did not lose a single man. What more could you ask?"

"We were lucky," Drago said.

"Luck had nothing to do with it," I replied. "They did not expect us to be so well trained, or so merciless. We have become as pitiless as our enemies. But that is as it must be. We have no alternative. If we are weak, we will fail. It is as simple as that."

I took an arm from the pack I was carrying. The flesh was a sickly green in the wavering light of the aurora borealis. I could not tell whom it belonged to. With a grimace, I swung it up and out and let it go. We watched it arc away, twirling end over end, until it fell out of sight.

Just behind me, Aioa let out a little shriek.

My heart leapt at her cry. I turned to ask her what was wrong and saw that she had dropped to her knees. She had covered her face with her hands. Her dark hair whipped in the wind. "What is it, granddaughter?" I asked, kneeling by her side.

She was trembling like a hare, shoulders hunched, head bowed down by the weight of some revelation only she was privy to.

I pulled her hands from her face. "Tell me," I said.

She looked at me, eyes bulging, face twisted with horror. "Oh, grandfather!" she sobbed. "It has happened! The most terrible thing!"

"What is it?" I demanded. "Aioa, what have you seen?"

For a moment, her mouth worked without making a sound, as if the answer were too terrible to give voice, and then she took a convulsive breath and cried out: "The God King has captured the Tanti!"