This Red Sky

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dust rose into the air as three horses cantered through the winding paths between the tents and houses of Cordath. Sonia sat cross-legged on the ground in front of Szandra's house, runes spread in front of her. She stood up as the horses approached.

Only two of the cultists sent to retrieve the Solkern returned out of the party of ten. Blood crusted their scarred skin, and the man that led the way pressed a hand to his gut, holding a soaked bandage against a bleeding wound.

Syralth had been speaking to Szandra in the shepherd tongue a few feet away, leaning against the clay wall of the priestess's house. Sonia touched her arm, pointing to the figures approaching. Syralth's voice faded in the middle of a sentence, her eyes widening at the sight before them. The second cultist rode with one hand, clutching a bloody rag to his mouth with the other. A few feet of leather connected the saddle of his horse to that of another. A limp figure lay over the saddle, bound with rough rope.

"Kwui-olok, ksa trek v'kor," the first man gasped as his horse came to a stop. Syralth rushed towards him as he dismounted heavily, Szandra at her heels. Her stomach sinking with dread, Sonia followed a step behind.

"What's happening?" she demanded of the shifter. The cultist muttered a few words before collapsing, his weight shaking the ground. A crowd was forming. Szandra waved two more cultists forward to pull the man to his feet.

"They were ambushed," Syralth gave her a furtive glance, before turning back to the wounded cultist. In the hurried string of words that rushed from the shifter's lips, Sonia heard the word Solkern.

The wounded man nodded, pointing to a bulging saddle bag on his horse's shoulder. Sonia could not help but move towards it. She could feel the eyes of Syralth, Szandra and the gathered cultists on her back as she undid the button that held the leather bag closed. The horse snorted, pawing the dirt. Sonia's hands found a familiar burlap bundle, stained with Ost-Drachen's red soil. Her heart skipped a beat as she pulled it out, feeling its warmth through the material.

"This is it," she turned back to Syralth, holding it out. "This is definitely it."

A smile crossed the shifter's lips. She reached out to take it, laughing shortly as she weighed it in her hands.

"It's heavier than I remember. Thank you, Sonia."

Sonia stiffened as Syralth dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. The wounded cultist hobbled, supported by his fellows, into Szandra's house.

"Redcloak, look," Szandra's voice interrupted the whispering of the gathered cult. Sonia's eyes followed where she pointed, to where the second cultist roughly hauled the bloodied prisoner down from the third horse. He dragged the man forward, dropping him to the ground before Syralth, and then knelt, offering her something in one large hand.

"This is the man who attacked the party only a night from here," Szandra translated for Sonia as Syralth listened to the man's story. His words were slurred by the gaps left by missing yellow teeth. Blood tricked down into the collar of his tunic. "He ambushed them from the cliffs with that bow."

Syralth accepted the weapon and quiver, her eyes travelling to the man on her ground. He lay facedown, coughing painfully.

"Look away, Sonia," Syralth muttered, and then gave an order to the nearest cultist. He picked up a broken clay brick on the ground, stalking towards the bound prisoner. Sonia looked over Syralth's shoulder, her heart dropping.

"Wait! Stop!" she rushed forward towards the prisoner, shielding him with her body. She knew the bow as if it was her own. It never left Nakt's side.