Lightnings Daughter by Mary Herbert (android based ebook reader .txt) 📗

Gabria lowered her eyes and shook her head. "They have a few books from the days of the old sorcerers in their citadel. I think Seth might be able to help me find something I could use to fight the gorthling."

"How can you be sure this is a gorthling? All you have are the magic words of a dead man,” Athlone said angrily.

"I'm not certain, but everything fits. Branth summoned something evil and now he is slaughtering every human in his sight. He has changed, we have al sensed that. I think he has been overcome by a gorthling. That's how they work; they possess a host body and wreak havoc using it as a tool."

"So why don't we kil its host body?" Sayyed suggested.

"We could do that, but a gorthling is immortal. It would simply take another body as host.”

Athlone leaned forward. "Then how do we destroy it?"

Gabria threw her hands up in the air and cried, "I don't know! The gorthling is a creature of magic and must be fought with magic. That's why I must see the Oathbreakers.”

The Turic gestured to himself and Athlone. "We are magic-wielders. We can help."

The woman shook her head wildly. "I can't teach you enough to fight something as powerful as a gorthling. Look at what it did to al of those people. It would slaughter you. I couldn't bear that."

"And what if it kills you?" Athlone said. "Who will fight it then? Do you expect us to just stand by and watch you face it alone?”

Gabria felt her heart leap. This was the first time Athlone had spoken to her about using his talent.

Nevertheless, she forced her excitement down and shook her head. She did not want him learning sorcery just so he could die at the hand of a gorthling. "Athlone, let's start by learning how to fight this creature. Then we will worry about who will destroy it.”

Athlone drew a deep breath. "All right. We'll go talk to the Oathbreakers. Just you and I. The others will follow Branth so we won't lose his trail.”

The hearthguard warriors protested. They feared the Oathbreakers, as did any sensible man of the Dark Horse Plains, but they were equally intent on fulfilling their duty to protect their chieftain.

"That's an order," Athlone told them. "There's no sense angering Seth and his fellow cultists by bringing all of you. Gabria and I will be all right. You'll have enough to worry about just keeping up with Branth."

The three warriors agreed reluctantly, and Gabria nodded with relief. She knew Sayyed was not happy to be left with the other warriors, but he, too, had to accept the decision.

Later, as she packed the death mask in the smal bag of belongings she would take with her, the sorceress wondered if Seth could tell her something about the golden artifact, too. She dismissed that hope immediately; it was possible that the Oathbreakers would refuse to talk to her at all.

* * * * *

The Khulinin left their camp shortly after sunrise the next morning. Secen led his group south on Branth's trail while Athlone, Gabria, and the three Hunnuli turned west to seek the citadel of Krath in the northern tip of the Himachal Mountains.

Athlone estimated it would take almost four days to reach the citadel, talk to Seth, and catch up again with the rest of the party. He hoped with all his heart that this trip to see the Oathbreakers was worthwhile. He had his doubts. The cult of Krath guarded their secrets jealously. They had gained the title' Oathbreakers by forsaking their vows of fealty to clan and chieftain and shunning their own people for the desolation of their mountain temple. Even if they had the information Gabria sought, they would not help her out of loyalty to the clans.

Athlone could not stifle a cold feeling of dread at the thought of the Men of the Lash, as the cultists were known. A cloak of suspicion born of whispered rumors and stories of heinous deeds hung on the Oathbreakers' shoulders. Unlike the men of the clans, who worshiped two male gods, the Men of the Lash worshiped Krath, the dark sister of Amara. But where the goddess Amara embodied the positive aspects of femininity, her sister represented the dark, less predictable facets.

Krath was the ruler of unbridled passion and violence, of secrecy and jealousy. Her power to destroy lay in ways that were either slow and subtle or sudden and unexpected.

Accordingly, Krath's followers became highly trained killers whose religious goals were to perform perfect murders in the service of their bloodthirsty mistress. The men used no metal in their arts. Their only weapons were their bodies, their whips, and their finely crafted killing instruments of leather and stone. It was said an Oathbreaker could snap a man's neck with his bare hands or remove a head with a flick of a vicious black whip.

The clanspeople looked on the Cult with aversion and fear. It was not the Oathbreakers' bloodlust that the clans despised, but the subterfuge they practiced. Their silent, furtive, deliberate style of killing was incomprehensible to the men of the clans. The cultists, for their part, preserved their secretive ways. They had scorned the clans for generations and held themselves aloof in their secret stronghold.

As he approached that stronghold, Athlone missed Bregan's strong, solid presence more than ever.

The loss of the warrior was a real blow. Athlone would have appreciated Bregan's level head and experience when the time came to deal with the Oathbreakers. The chief’s hand tightened unconsciously around his sword hilt. If he had to, he would tear down the citadel of Krath stone by stone to get the help Gabria needed to destroy Branth. That murderer had too much clan blood on his hands to remain in this world.

The next day, Gabria and Athlone saw the gray-blue humps of the Himachal Mountains rise above