The Halo Of Vakh (BOOK 1)

GUIDING LIGHT

If anyone had told Andrew a few years ago that he would be hiding from the King's men under the shelter of the Vakhor, then he would have laughed in their faces and set Chippy on them. Yet, there he was, travelling with an odd group of people. He kept on glancing backwards, towards the uninhabitable land beside them. Somewhere, in that cover of the Vakhor lay his home. Somewhere, in there, lay Murkat, rotting and crumbling after the rebellion there. He missed his Sama and he missed Chippy, the one white faced capuchin he had bought off a merchant by saving up the money for three months.

Twice, they came upon masses of slaughter and heaps of rotting bodies piled on top of each other, tangled messes of skin, limbs and cloth. He wanted to vomit each time. They couldn't bury each and every one of them with the proper rites, more for the lack of time they had rather than the lack of knowledge. Each time, Lysander floated each and every man into the graves, letting a final wave of Draedech wash over the ground, till Edwin Parr's symbol burned in the ground as bright as the West Star, till the meaning etched itself into the earth. This was Lysander's anger, one he had pushed deep into his soul till it had turned into bitterness.

But, he could push it down into the fragile glass for only so long, till it cracked and resurfaced. It had returned, raised its head like the flaming monster it was and Andrew knew it would burn each and every tyrant in their land.

Ileeyan was the one who made small wreaths out of dried tree leaves and fallen flowers, giving the villages a haunting beauty that lingered behind them as they went.

"What's the nearest city?" Thomas asked, wiping sweat out of his eyes and squinting at the afternoon sun as if it had done him some great offence. After three days of slow riding beneath the scorching ball of fire, Andrew thought that Thomas' glare was not strange.

"Heif," Lysander replied. "If my estimations are correct we'll be entering its outskirts by tomorrow evening."

"Then we'll have to turn back around," Ileeyan said from somewhere at the very rear of the group. "We'll be heading straight into Parr's hands if we continue."

"We will not," Lysander muttered, teeth clenched. He had been on edge all day. "We have to get something to eat, a newspaper and other supplies. We'll disguise ourselves. And if someone asks we are just a group of entertainers and sellers."

"Except that we have no goods to sell," Rueen's bored voice spoke up from beside him. "Nor anything to entertain anyone with. A bit suspicious isn't it?"

"You're a healer," Lysander threw over his shoulder. "I'm sure you of all people will find some use of your talents."

"She will," Thomas said. "If the situation's the same all over then there will be plenty of people for you to stitch up."

They fell quiet after that, straying farther and farther from the Vakhor border, leaving the blinding orange behind them. He saw Sapphire relax in front of him the moment the border was nothing more than a speck of orange in the distance.

They camped in an abandoned field that night, hiding between the half-trampled leaves of the radishes. Andrew heard a rat scamper by his ear. They pulled the half-ripe radishes from the ground for their breakfast the next morning, boiled them into a flavourless mush and downed their last pieces of stale bread with it. By the time they reached the gates of Heif, their disguised forms reeking of sweat and mud, Andrew wanted to jump into the sea stretching away from them, beyond the fences that surrounded the city. The crowd of people at the gates was large. Most of them carried large bags over their bags. Andrew realised these were the few people who could afford to get themselves out of Falargimea while others were left to rot under Parr's tyranny.

For a moment, his thoughts swam back to Donovan.

That backstabbing lizard.

He wondered if he had found enough wealth in Yensrotho to make himself an empire of lies and tainted luxury while they scurried around half the length of Falargimea trying to get to some sort of safety.