Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) by J.C. Staudt Page B

had risked everything to report back to
Neacal, but now she didn’t know whose side she was on—whose side she should be on. Neacal really was here to take slaves. For the first time in
Lizneth’s life, she had begun to think of Sniverlik and his Marauders as a
protective force rather than an oppressive one.
    When she stood, no one noticed. Calaihn were running
past her in every direction, frantic and unprepared. She’d been forgotten in
the uproar. Maybe she didn’t have to take sides just yet…
    The calaihn had been using a massive boulder as a
lookout post from which to keep an eye on the valley below. With the Marauders
on the move, the lookouts were abandoning their stations and advancing to
bolster the front lines. That boulder might be the perfect place for Lizneth to
hide—and it would give her a bird’s eye view of the proceedings. She gathered
up her chains to keep them from rattling, just as Neacal had instructed. The
clamor in the camp would’ve masked the sound anyway, but there was still the
chance she could run into a few straggling guards coming up from the rear.
    On several occasions she had to duck behind a rock or crag to
avoid being seen, but she soon found that the calaihn were less
concerned with her than with the threat of the impending attack. She moved at a
steady, brisk pace. No one gave her more than a brief glance as they passed.
    The boulder was not hard to climb, even bound as she was. Her
manacles were large enough for a calai , so the cuffs hung loose around
her ankles, and the length of chain between them was more than adequate to let
her stretch out her arms and legs as she climbed. She made it to the top and
lay down, both to rest and to make herself harder to see from below. The calaihn were massing on the lower ridge, pacing about and pounding their chests as they
shouted and howled their fury. Lizneth found the behavior odd, something they
did as a show of strength when it was probably more suited toward staving off
their fear.
    When the sound of the Marauders’ horns blatted across the
mountainside, none of the calaihn reacted. To Lizneth it seemed that
many of them hadn’t even heard the horn; half of them had to be tapped on the
shoulder by the other half, who were pointing toward the upper ridge. Before
her eyes, a flood of ikzhehn began to gush forth from the depths; a
fearsome sight, if not also impressive. The Marauders had the benefit of both
timing and gravity behind them, and they’d soon accelerated to a startling clip
down the rocks. Most of them ran on all fours, blades glinting from forearms
and scabbards and hidden pockets forced open by the wind. The calaihn began to trudge up the incline, but they were loose and disorganized, and their
plodding advance made a lackluster counter-charge at best.
    Behind the Marauders, a lumbering black shape crested the
ridgetop and started down the rocks on two feet, his greened copper armor
giving off a drab, muted sheen. When Sniverlik thrust the Zithstone Scepter
high above his head, Lizneth suddenly knew the reason he had chosen to attack
the calaihn during the day’s brightest hour. Where the Zithstone
should’ve glinted in the morning light, it dulled the air around itself to a
gray blemish instead. For a moment Lizneth felt as though she were staring at a
dark smudge on a pane of glass. Then Sniverlik twisted his wrist, and the daylight
curved and split into a tangle of hollow ribbons. Calaihn for dozens of
fathoms around staggered and began to slow. The Marauders, who were wearing
dark studded goggles over their eyes, only charged in the faster.
    Lizneth adjusted her own goggles and watched as the calai warriors wilted like heat-stressed flowers, their battle rage softening to a
stupor. Their arms dropped to their sides, weapons clattered to the ground, and
in an instant many were hunch-backed and shambling. Some even fell forward and slid
down the slope on their bellies.
    Sniverlik’s Marauders washed over them like