The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [170]
Muqallad struggles. He is strong, but Nikandr holds tight, hoping that the mere contact will complete the process.
They fall to the ground. Muqallad screams in rage—perhaps also in pain—and then Nasim is standing over them both. His eyes are sharp and piercing. His face is angry.
“Not now,” Nasim says as he reaches down and touches Muqallad’s forehead.
Muqallad rears back. His whole body stiffens as his eyes roll back. His skin begins to wrinkle, and Nikandr releases him from the sheer terror of it. As he scrabbles away, Muqallad continues to wither. His arms curl around his waist, and his legs pull up toward his chest. He looks, in these last moments, like Nasim, pained and ignorant of the world around him.
His skin dries, turns gray, begins to flake. And then, as the wind picks up, it falls away as if he is so much sand being blown across the desert floor.
“Come,” Nasim says, holding his hand out to Nikandr. He tips his head toward the akhoz. “They will wake soon.”
The world is already speeding up. The akhoz shamble forward. Ashan is spreading his arms wide, his chest open to the sky.
Nikandr allows Nasim to pull him to his feet, and together they pull Ashan out through the akhoz.
By the time they have passed the circle of the akhoz, the world continues as it always has.
They ran, and with the akhoz slowed by the fall of their master, they quickly added distance between them. But Nikandr knew this was temporary at best. The akhoz were already gaining speed, and if anything, their anger rose to new heights as they howled in their pursuit.
They reached the edges of the city, where the buildings were more sparse. The road led to the trail that would take them higher toward the island’s central ridge and toward the remains of Nikandr’s crew, but before they had passed the last of the ruined stone buildings, a call came from behind—higher-pitched, more insistent.
An akhoz, the same girl as before, was frenzied in her pursuit and was now much closer than the pack further behind. She would be on them in moments.
Nikandr pulled his kindjal, not knowing what else to do. Ashan, the jasper gem upon his wrist glowing faintly, turned and raised his hands up high. The ground rose in a mound before the akhoz. They squealed as they were flung backward. A vanahezhan stood, fully formed, sidestepping to place itself in the path of the akhoz as she attempted to circumvent it to reach Nasim.
Nikandr had not expected even an arqesh like Ashan to be able to summon a hezhan—he should have only been able to use its powers on this plane— but surely it had something to do with the particulars of Ghayavand.
The akhoz’s blackened eyes widened and her lips pulled back, revealing the shattered remains of teeth, as the hezhan charged forward. The akhoz darted to one side and gripped the hezhan’s massive arm. A sizzling sound filled the air as the hezhan moaned and reared backward. Its arm dried in an instant and powdered to dust as the akhoz retreated once more.
She was not quick enough, however. The other arm of the hezhan pounded her across the head. It sounded like a hammer that butchers use to fell pigs before the slaughter. The akhoz flew through the air and landed in a heap, her head bent backward under her body.
She lay there, lifeless, as the other akhoz approached, and when Nikandr looked beyond to the city, he saw three more shamble from the streets—then another pair—all of them heading their way. They had only minutes to defeat the nearest of them and flee before they were overwhelmed.
The older akhoz leapt when it neared the vanahezhan. The beast was not ready for it, and the akhoz landed on its chest. The akhoz remained in place as it hugged the chest of the earth spirit and released a hoarse cry into the air. The hezhan moaned as the heat intensified to the point that Nikandr had to retreat.
Moments later, the hezhan’s body powdered just as its arm had, and parts of it began to ablate in a way that was eerily similar to Muqallad’s death.
Nikandr tried to advance with his kindjal, but the heat