Heirs of the Fallen: Book 02 - Crown of the Setting Sun by James A. West Page A

strength.
    “Quit fighting, you damned fool,” a man’s gruff voice commanded.
    Leitos’s arms fell, and his eyes rolled. A presence loomed above him, clad in dripping rags colored after the hues of the desert, all of browns, dirty reds, and fawn. In a lurching gait, the bulky figure brought him to higher ground, then tossed him down.
    Still unable to draw a breath, the blessed darkness began to fall again over Leitos. He let it, for in death he had known absolute peace, and he desired to know that nothingness again. As if alerted to Leitos’s thoughts and finding them unacceptable, the man turned, his face lost in the shadow of a deep, drooping hood. Without preamble, he jammed a sandaled foot onto Leitos’s chest and stomped down. Leitos’s eyes bulged at the offending pressure, and a gout of water sprayed past his teeth. The ragged figure mercilessly trounced him once, twice, again. Each time, more of the river surged from Leitos’s lungs, until no more came.
    A rattling wheeze assailed Leitos’s ears as his body, indifferent to the will of his heart, drew breath. Fresh air flowed, but after the gritty river water it burned worse than going without, leaving him coughing and retching. The agonizing fit went on until he was sure he had ruptured something.
    In time, his labored breathing evened out, and the fierce blaze in his chest subsided. When his coughing finally dwindled to nothing, everything inside him felt raw and abused.
    Leitos’s eyes fluttered open on a roiling expanse of clouds, their mottled gray-and-black underbellies torn by flicking tongues of white fire. The rainfall had begun to taper off. Head wobbling, he cast about and found that the walls of the gorge had fallen away to reveal a familiar desert landscape. At the river’s edge, thickets of lush green rushes bowed their heads away from the press of the wind. Farther up the bank, a few spindly trees swayed back and forth.
    Leitos rolled to his side to avoid looking into the depths of his savior’s hood. He closed his eyes on the world, his chest occasionally hitching with a weak cough.
    The dark figure hovered motionless, silent, ominous. “You will live,” the man growled.
    “Why did you save me?” Leitos asked weakly.
    The man cocked his hooded head. He remained silent for a time, then spoke words that sent a chill through Leitos. “I suppose one like you, an escaped slave, would rather die. No such luck, boy. You are worth more alive than dead.”
    “A
Hunter
,” Leitos gasped. On the rarest occasion a slave escaped the
Alon’mahk’lar
. When that happened, they employed Hunters, men renowned as much for their tracking abilities as their unfeeling treachery against their own kind. Being human, such men roved without suspicion, seeking and finding those they pursued. Often, they worked hand-in-hand with slavers who brought fresh captives to the mines. Adham had hated Hunters worse than he hated the
Alon’mahk’lar,
or even the Faceless One.
“There are few betrayals worse than men hunting their own at the command of demon-spawn,”
he had often said, always spitting on the ground to emphasize his contempt.
“Nothing can ever redeem the soul of such a despicable creature.”
    Looking askance at his captor, Leitos collected himself and sat up, muscles quivering uncontrollably. He felt cold and gray-fleshed, like something dead. All that mattered was getting his wits and strength back, then planning his escape. He could not let himself be given again into the hands of the
Alon’mahk’lar
.
    The Hunter squatted on his haunches, his face still lost in the darkness of his hood. Nevertheless, the weight of his unseen eyes pressed against Leitos. He said nothing, only looked. What he saw besides a sopping and disheveled youth, Leitos could only guess. That continued study made him more uncomfortable by the moment. He imagined a mouse must feel the same, when facing an adder.
    The Hunter kept up his silent vigil so long that Leitos