Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [31]
“I see. Well,” said Hazid.
Oh holy angel in the heavens, he thought. He was going to be arrested by the most decorated knight in the world. And by some rhox.
“And I am Mubin, knight of the Order of the Reliquary,” said the rhox, his voice as deep as a gravel pit.
“You’re under arrest,” said Rafiq.
“I’ve done nothing,” said Hazid, and threw his glass at Rafiq’s face.
Rafiq dodged the glass and liquid both, and struck Hazid clean across his face with his open hand in the same motion. The glass shattered uselessly somewhere behind them.
The blow rang in Hazid’s head. The pain took several seconds to sink in, but then it blossomed into a full, electric injury. There must be glowing fingermarks across his cheek, he thought. His next thought came in clear, simple words, as clear as the wine glass shattered on the ground: This man must now die.
Hazid had enough sense to keep that thought from spilling out of his mouth. “I’ll go quietly, gentlemen,” he said.
JUND
There was no warning, no sense of transition. Ajani was no longer in Jazal’s cavern, and no longer hanging in space. He was no longer breathing the smoke of the torches outside his brother’s lair. The light had changed—he was outdoors, and the sky was a burnt orange. The air had changed—it was dry and hot, with a stiff sulfur undertone. The terrain had changed—he was standing on the slope of a mountain of rust-streaked stone.
Nightmare? Hallucination? Hell?
He didn’t feel asleep. It didn’t seem like a hallucination—everything felt crystal-sharp, detailed, and immediate. And if he had died of grief and gone to some kind of afterlife, it certainly wasn’t what he had expected.
He stood there gaping. The least reasonable hypothesis, which seemed increasingly likely to be the case, was that he was simply, inexplicably, somewhere else.
The sense of remoteness was unmistakable. Beyond not recognizing anything he saw before him, he knew he was far from his pride’s den—far, in fact, from anywhere he had ever been in his life. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he knew.
He grasped at straws. Maybe it was another life. Maybe it was the distant past.
Maybe Jazal wasn’t really dead.
“These thoughts are useless,” he muttered. If it was in any way real, he thought, then he needed to be home.
Before he had time to begin formulating a plan of how to get home again, a stream of chittering, furry creatures appeared from around a bend in the trail. Their eyes were beady and ferocious, and their claws and teeth as sharp as needles. They hissed as they saw him, and swarmed directly toward him.
Ajani had never seen creatures like them. They were short, just above waist-high, with broad heads, pointed ears, and light brown fur. Their hands were clawed, and they wore simple furs and beads. There were about two dozen of them. He absorbed all in a flash as he made the quick decision to turn and run in the opposite direction. Did every species have to enjoy hunting him?
Ajani outpaced the creatures around the next bend, but they were gaining fast. He wished he had another direction to run, but the heights were dramatic—to his left, the rusty stone wall of the mountain was almost vertical. To his right, there was empty air—a sheer drop-off. The narrow path between them was Ajani’s only option, so he took it.
But it was no use. The diminutive monsters were catching up with him. Perhaps he could fight them, or scare them off. Ajani stopped and spun around, but before he could take an attack stance or bring his axe to bear, they were abreast of him … and running right past.
The creatures clicked and chittered excitedly as they streamed past him. They weren’t chasing him at all. They were fleeing.
Ajani looked back in the direction they had come from, and saw what they were trying to flee. There was a whoosh of wind that almost