The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [44]
His pace quickened now that he had been given a path to follow and a sense of purpose. Even the horrors of the killing field were less shocking than before. The endless variations of mutilation—charred limbs, split skulls, sunken chests—all played out the basic theme of death. The weapons also varied in configuration, yet all had drawn sufficient blood to silence their enemies. Some of the slain were unmarked, showing no open wounds, but their faces were clenched and contorted in the grotesque physical manifestation of the Calls that had expertly twisted their minds.
The tattered remnants of a bright red flag caught his eye. He approached it with dread, torn between the urgency of his father’s Call and fear of where it drew him. Yes, his family had fought here. By a freak accident of the wind, the cloth was draped like a shroud across the body of one of his clansmen, mimicking the act of a healer acknowledging the limits of her art. His search was almost over.
My son.
The Call was weaker than before, yet still he could sense that his father lay nearby.
He took one step forward, then faltered when he saw the face of the body lying in his path.
Surrell lay crumpled on the ground where a shard of metal had pinned him down; he had died in agony, thrashing to free himself. To lose any brother was a cause for grief, but this brother had been a favorite, and his death brought more pain than all the other horrors the boy had witnessed.
A second step revealed another slain brother.
Then a third.
All the dead before him had names; he had seen each of these still, pale faces laughing in the radiant moonlight during the last Festival of Moons. Brothers, uncles, cousins; there were too many to mourn.
“Father!”
“Here.” The soft word was spoken, not Sent.
The boy frantically scrabbled through the dead bodies until his hands touched warm flesh. He fell to his knees by the side of his father. Stef’s face was covered with blood, blurring the familiar angular features. His eyes, normally dark and piercing, were clouded with pain and exhaustion, but they cleared when he felt the touch of a hand on his arm.
“I’ve come, Father.”
“What, no other sons left?” asked Stef, his weak voice hoarse with anger.
“No, Father, just me.”
“So be it. I will have more sons.” With a gasping breath to gather strength for movement, Stef drew back his cloak to reveal a small object nestled by his side. “Behold your birthright and your future the king-maker, Ko N’ya!”
“This is what my brothers died for?” asked the boy. He had overheard Surrell and the others whispering in the dark when they had thought he was safely asleep; they had spun strange tales of a relic of great power that would bring immense wealth to the clan that possessed it. Yet this dull gray rock was not worth one day of Surrell’s life.
“Death is a small price to pay for our place in history. My dynasty shall unite all Vulcan,” said his father. He lifted up the stone and his voice grew louder. “We will live forever … rule forever.”
The boy reached out to touch the rough surface of the Ko N’ya, but Stef pulled it away.
“Mine!” he hissed. “Do not be so eager to succeed me.”
“No, Father, I never meant—” Stef’s cry of pain cut off the boy’s apology. A spasm racked through the man’s body, twisting his muscles into knots and robbing him of the strength to hold the stone. It slipped from his trembling fingers, and the boy lunged forward to catch it before it hit the ground.
Mine!
“Father?”
The soft flutter of Stef’s Calling mind faded to silence.
The boy rocked back on his heels, the Ko N’ya in his hands. He was the only living being left on the plain of Ishaya.
Desert nights are chill on Vulcan. The borrowed warmth of the sun does not linger for very long in the dark. A young boy in a linen shirt and sleeveless vest would need to huddle close to the licking flames of a fire in order to survive until morning.
Not this boy.
He sat cross-legged on the cold ground, yet his limbs did not shiver and tremble. The stone rested in the palms of his hands where he held its weight