Chapter 42
Thera was tied up, miserable and plotting her escape, when she heard the rapid approach of hoofbeats. Through the open canvas of the back of the wagon, she saw that an Inquisitor had a body draped over the back of his saddle. When she saw the body was Javed, it made her smile. Hopefully that traitorous scum had been struck dead because his rotten heart had burst.
“Help! I found the witch hunter fallen upon the road. He is delirious from the sun.”
Damn. The bastard’s still alive, Thera thought. That would teach her to get her hopes up.
The convoy came to a halt as the Inquisitors tried to revive their fallen man. The other witch hunter rushed to where they had laid Javed in the shade of another wagon. “Fetch him some water, quickly.”
She would laugh and laugh if Javed died of heat stroke, as that was the most humiliating way for a Zarger desert dweller to perish—assuming he actually was from there and hadn’t been lying about that like everything else. In the meantime, while her regular guards were distracted by the fallen witch hunter, she would work the fraying cords around her wrists against the rough edge of a pried-up board as long as she could. The fresh stitches in her arm and back indicated the Inquisitors wanted to deliver her to the Capitol alive rather than dead, but those injuries made the repetitive sawing motion an agony.
Only Thera wasn’t the type to give in to despair. She’d been captured before, and had survived far worse situations than this…or so she told herself. All she needed to do was get free, find a knife, slit some throats, sneak past some Inquisitors and a whole bunch of warriors, steal some supplies and a horse, and escape across the desert. That wasn’t easy—far from it—but that certainly wasn’t impossible.
When one of the guards shouted a warning that a large group of riders was approaching from the southwest, Thera felt another spark of hope that maybe it was the Sons, and they’d somehow eluded their pursuers and found her.
Except a moment later that happy idea was dashed, when one of the Makao soldiers shouted that he recognized the banner of their phontho. This wasn’t a rescue. It was just more reinforcements for her captors.
Thera realized Javed had woken up, and was staring right at her, almost through her, so she quit sawing and tried to act as if she’d been doing nothing at all. Only he hadn’t seemed to notice her furtive actions, as his eyes were wide and wild. He seemed confused and afraid, as he lay there in the shade of a wagon, panting like a wounded animal.
Thera found that odd, but if she was lucky that was what two-faced traitors looked like before dying from excessive heat.
The other witch hunter, Nikunja, held a cup of water to Javed’s mouth so that he could drink, and before the warriors got there, he pulled up Javed’s Inquisitor’s mask to grant him some dignity. The entire time Javed just kept staring at Thera. If the annoying gods who had drafted her had any sense of justice at all they’d at least allow her to get her hands free long enough to plunge something sharp into the false priest’s throat.
The newly arrived Makao warriors rode alongside the wagons, their horses lathered and breathing hard, indicating that they’d set a brutal pace to reach the convoy. That was a stupid and dangerous thing to do in the arid desert unless it was absolutely necessary, even in the cooler seasons. In typical Makao fashion, their armor was too pretty, too ornamented and colorful, and it brought back the long-neglected disgust she felt toward the house that had conquered Vane and made it a vassal.
Witch Hunter Nikunja addressed the still unseen leader of the riders. “Good to see you again, Phonto, but we have no further need of assistance…unless you bring word of the demise of the Sons of the Black Sword.”
There was a brusque answer, but Thera couldn’t make out the words…except there was something about that tone…
“That is impossible,” the witch hunter said. “There’s no time for diversions. We are to take our prisoner directly to the Tower of Silence.”
The phontho said something else, and since he had gotten closer, she could actually hear him a bit better. There was something familiar about that voice…
Nikunja laughed nervously, looking to his fellow witch hunter for aid, but Javed still appeared incoherent. “You speak foolishness, Phontho! This so-called prophet falls under Inquisition jurisdiction. You agreed to that yourself!”
The phontho was close enough now that his voice was unmistakable. “That was before I learned her name. If your prisoner is in fact Thera Vane, we’re taking her to Kanok for trial. In the unlikely event she’s not executed, you can have her when we’re done.”
It was him. A cold, sick knot formed in Thera’s stomach. She’d rather go with the Inquisition. Better to die on the dome than go back to Makao.
“I cannot allow this. There’s no way for us to reach Kanok and be back across the mountains before winter.”
“Too bad, Witch Hunter. It appears you have a handful of Inquisitors, one of whom appears deathly ill, while I have two hundred men and a whole lot of desert to bury bodies no one will ever find.” There was a creak of leather as the phontho dismounted. “That is the only diplomacy I will offer you today.”
“This is outrageous. You would risk angering the Grand Inquisitor?”
“To get first crack at this particular rebel I’d provoke the Grand Inquisitor, all the judges, and every demon in hell. From the way your masks are pointed, she’s inside there.”
Boots crunched through sand as a shadow approached on the other side of the canvas. Thera steeled herself, and once again wished her hands were free. As much as she’d fancy stabbing Javed, killing this man would be far more satisfying.
The fabric was swept aside, revealing a warrior with an eye patch and a jagged scar that crossed both sockets.
So I missed an eye. Unfortunate.
Dhaval Makao sneered. “It’s been a long time, wife.”