“I agree, but once again, what other choice do we have?” Milo asked, and since both knew the answer, they shared a weary shrug and lapsed into silence. As the miles rolled beneath them, there was only the chug of the engine and the keening of the wind to fill the stillness.
The red sky was deepening into the first shades of a bruise when they crested a hill and looked down into a rocky gorge.
“This should be it,” Ambrose grumbled as he brought the Rollsy to a halt. “But I don’t see any trees or rivers, do you?”
Milo squinted down into the barren cleft between climbing slopes, trying desperately to fight the rising panic in his chest. There were signs that a small stream had wound between the tumble of rock, but the pebbled ground was dry, and the typical green of the springtime Caucasus was only a mangy patchwork. Milo wasn’t certain a single tree could survive amongst the parched boulders, much less a wood.
But the priest had seemed so certain, so sure.
“What do you want to do?” Ambrose asked, looking at Milo, his expression grim.
It was doubtful that Rihyani would last long enough for them to get back as it was. If they retreated to Shatili and tried to form a new plan, they knew they would be returning to watch her die.
“Let’s get down there.” Milo sighed, shaking his head at the lunacy of the direction. “Maybe we can find something to help us figure out what happened to the marquis’ valley. Maybe they left some sign.”
Milo didn’t have to look at Ambrose to know he was staring at him pityingly.
“Okay, Magus,” Ambrose said. “But don’t get your hopes…”
Ambrose’s voice trailed off, his head cocking to one side. His expression darkened to a vicious scowl.
“They’re coming,” he snarled, throwing the Rollsy into gear.
Milo stood up and looked behind them, and then swore ferociously as he spotted two of the canvas-backed trucks rolling over the hills toward their position.
“Hold on,” Ambrose warned, and they plunged toward the mouth of the gorge.
Milo looked ahead and dared to hope that there among the boulders, the smaller, narrower Rollsy would have a chance to take a path the trucks could not. Considering he’d managed to lose all their fuel, that was about the only hope they had of evading the Americans and their goons. An extended chase was out of the question.
Milo mentally urged the Rollsy to move faster, and as they neared the gorge, he imagined they had begun to move so fast that the air rippled around them. A moment later, he was sure it wasn’t his imagination, but a real distortion in the air.
“Milo?” Ambrose called, an anxious edge in his voice.
“I have no idea,” Milo confessed at the top of his lungs as they plowed on. The entire gorge wobbled and flexed like water before their eyes.
Then, as if emerging from underwater, they roared into a wooded vale where the dying sun lit the mist beneath the boughs on fire.
Ambrose swore as he looked around in utter wonder at the soaring evergreens standing sentinel over the vale, each taller than any tree he’d ever seen. The gorge wasn’t only verdant but also larger, wider, and deeper than he would have thought possible.
Both men gawked, for a moment forgetting they were being pursued by violent men in a flash of childlike wonder.
Then they realized that they were racing at breakneck speed toward a wall of trees.
14
The Sacrifice
Ambrose swore and sawed the wheel with reckless abandon.
The Rollsy began to slide sideways, throwing up a sheet of water as it skidded through the shallows of a pebbled riverbank that hadn’t been there moments ago. Ambrose bellowed several colorful curses in French as the Rollsy refused to respond. The drag of the water and the tires plowing through sand robbed them of some momentum, but not enough as the vehicle skidded free of the shore and slung around toward a towering pine. Milo braced for the impact as the barked column consumed his view of the world.
The Rollsy hit the tree broadside, crumpling the armored flank on Milo’s side in a sense-blasting crash.
There were a low hiss and several heavy clunks beneath the hood of the vehicle, and the engine died with a dull clinking sputter. For a moment, nothing stirred in the wood except the languid curls of mist and the soft burbles of the gentle river. The entire mouth of the vale seemed to be holding its breath after the violence of the impact, waiting in trepidation for something to stir in the wreckage.
Ambrose was first, slumping in his seat after unpeeling his hands from the wheel with a groan. He looked at Milo, saw the steady rise and fall of the magus’ chest; there was cause to be hopeful he would wake soon. He gave a low sigh and slowly squirmed around to fetch his discarded weapons from the back of the cab.
Milo woke with a start a few seconds later and then gave a grunt as he twisted his head to elicit several loud pops. His body was stiff and unsteady, but he found himself thankful as he looked down and saw the buckled-in door. His unmolested leg lay less than a finger’s breadth from where the metal had imploded into the cab, rending through the cushion of the seat.
“That could have been worse,” Milo hissed as he forced his sore body to move, shuffling clear of the collapsed door.
“We need to get into the trees,” Ambrose said as he made to swing out of the cab. “If we could get through, there’s no reason that they can’t follow us here.”
As though in affirmation, the rumble of engines sounded from where they’d come. They weren’t coming as fast, but there was no mistaking that they were indeed coming down into the valley. Milo let a hand stray to the knife in his coat and wondered if it would be better to toss it into the river. He considered coming before the marquis empty-handed, but then he thought about the trucks rolling in with Ezekiel, and he imagined dragging the monstrous man before the marquis.
Why settle for the hexed knife when the recipient of the curse was right there?
Milo sprang out of the Rollsy and scuttled over to Ambrose, who busied himself checking his weapons and ammunition. His Gewehr and bandoleer were nowhere to be seen, but one of the stocky carbines was over his shoulder, and he was busy yanking the oddly layered magazines out of the other two carbines and stuffing the reloads into his pockets.
“It’s our turn to do the ambushing,” Milo said, pointing with his cane out of the vale, where the sound of the trucks was growing ever louder. “I need you to help me pull it off.”
Ambrose frowned as his gaze swept across the vale, and he turned in a small, shuffling circle. He sighted down the carbine barrel at the mouth of the vale, mustache twitching, then looked back among the mist-swathed trees. Milo didn’t need the big man to say anything to tell him he didn’t like the setup, but the engines revved, and a bloodthirsty “YEEHAW!” echoed around them.
“They have us outnumbered,” Ambrose noted flatly. “And we know as much about this terrain as they do.”
“Sure.” Milo shrugged and threw his best devil-may-care smile. “But we’ve got something that evens all that out.”
Ambrose’s brows knitted as he gave Milo a bemused look.
“Magic?” he asked, his head tilting to one side.
“Not a bad guess.” Milo grinned. “But I was talking about you, my avenging angel.”
To punctuate the point, Milo punched the big man’s shoulder, which turned out to be as good an idea as punching the tree that had nearly smashed the Rollsy. Milo shook his tingling fingers as Ambrose rolled his eyes.
“One other thing,” Milo said, the smile dropping as he continued to shake out his hand. “We’ll be taking the cowboy captive, so you’re going to have to hold off on your promise to chop him to bits.”
Ambrose looked unhappier about that caveat than anything Milo had suggested thus far. Head shaking, he turned toward the trees and unslung the stolen rifle from his shoulder.
“Come on.” Ambrose set off toward the woods, moving as quickly as he dared over the obscured ground.
Before tu
rning to follow, Milo drew out the knife, still in its bag leather bag, hefting it in his hand.
“Sniff this out,” he spat and sent the knife tumbling end over end into the river.
Behind him, he heard the engines baying, and he stole a glance over his shoulder to see a pair of headlights glowing in the enchanted fog. Milo looked back at the forest, where Ambrose had shuffled behind a colossal tree trunk. The purple of evening had settled over the valley, and as it deepened before his eyes, Milo felt a tingle of fear. The woods exuded a sinister, primordial aura, and Milo remembered Imrah’s shade telling him of horrors hanging bones and skin from the trees.
“Just remember I’m on your side,” he whispered as he loped between the trees.
* * *
The mist swallowed them, a strange, almost perverse amniotic experience.
The air was close and moist, and everything seemed to press in around them. Sounds, strange calls, and croaks that came from no animal humans had ever heard of echoed and warbled on the watery air. The weight of the trees bore down on them, and both were soon crouching under the subconscious pressure.
Ambrose’s gaze swept left and right, searching for a suitable spot to stage their ambush, but the deeper they went, the closer the trees seemed to be. Soon there was nothing to do but shuffle down the narrow path between looming trunks and drooping branches. Twice they stopped dead when something long and pale darted across the path, but each time neither could remember what they’d seen and despite several seconds’ pause, there was no sign of the creature returning.
After a few minutes, Milo was certain he’d made a terrible mistake suggesting they try to ambush their pursuers, and he almost asked Ambrose if they were lost and needed to retrace their steps. Then silvery light shone in front of them, and without a word between them, they both quickened their pace to escape the oppression of that arboreal corridor. Just before they burst from under the trees, Milo could have sworn that he could hear them creaking as though tightening around them.
They emerged in a small glade, where a series of six tall stones, three to a side, flanked a moss-speckled patch of flagstones. The rough-hewn obelisks were covered in thickly daubed and crudely depicted eyes marked with blinding slashes. In the moon-cast shadows of the stones, they saw bones through which grew thick vines.
Milo fought back a shiver.
“So,” Ambrose said, looking around the glade but avoiding the standing stones. “This will work better than anything else. I expect they’ll have to come the same way we did, which means that they’ll probably rush in here, either because they're on our trail or they just want to get out of the woods.”
Milo nodded, then looked back the way they’d come. The shadowed path was dark and narrow, certainly, but on this side, the terror they’d both felt could only be explained by the pervasive magic Milo felt coursing through the air. It was not just the tingling, but he most certainly felt something stirring around them, almost like a vast, sleepy presence yawning. Inside the tunnel of trees, they’d felt the weight of its half-awake stare, dull but terrible.
“Which means I’m going to be at their backs,” Ambrose explained, pointing at a shallow gap in the trees by the glade entrance. “This rifle seemed potent enough when the mercenaries were using them, so I should be able to drop a few of them. I expect when they turn around to return fire, you can step in. Figure you can roast a few of them, Magus?”
The question woke Milo out of his enraptured staring, and his brain scrambled to recollect what his ears had been hearing.
“Um, uh, yeah,” Milo said, trying to shake off the feeling of that huge presence bending low to squint at him. “So, where do I need to be?”
Ambrose scratched his cheek.
“Somewhere with solid enough cover that I don’t have to worry about a stray shot hitting you,” Ambrose told him, slowly dragging his eyes over to the standing stones. “One of those would fit the bill if you could stand it.”
Milo looked at the adorned heathen stones and the bones splayed at their feet and found himself hesitating. He tried to tell himself that after his time among the ghuls of Ifreedahm, this was a simple thing, but the supernatural presence that settled over him had rendered everything about the vale menacing.
But Milo had spent his entire life fighting scared, and ominous homicidal forest or no, he wasn’t about to back down from a couple of painted rocks.
“Yeah,” he almost growled, his lips curling back from his teeth. “I can do that. Just make sure you keep your head down when I start the cookout.”
Milo looked over and saw Ambrose smiling at him.
“You almost make me believe this isn’t a bad idea.” He chuckled before moving toward his hiding spot.
“You’re saying this might work?” Milo called over his shoulder as he marched determinedly toward the row of stones.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the big man replied without looking back.
* * *
Milo carefully maneuvered his feet around the bones as he glanced around the standing stone. Then the mercenaries filed into the glade.
The first three emerged with their rifles at their shoulders, sweeping left and right, their bodies illuminated in uncommonly bright moonlight.
Even from this distance, Milo could see the men were unsettled, their movements jerky, eyes bulging. When nothing immediately sprang at them, they motioned back down the forest path. There were sounds of more men coming while the vanguard held their position, doing their best to stay on guard while avoiding the sight of the standing stones.
Standing close to the stones, his nostrils full of the smell of rot and old earth, Milo understood the feeling.
Watching the mercenaries, something like pity rose up in the magus’ chest as he imagined being one of the poor wretches, no doubt roped into the job with promises and threats or both, now seeing their numbers whittled down to half a dozen or so frightened men who were so far out of their depth it ceased to be funny. Milo wanted to hate them because hating them made everything easier, but he couldn’t manage it.
Luckily for him, a voice he did hate sounded from the forest path.
“Tell this yellow saddle-sore he best get back to his job,” Ezekiel Boucher snarled, a hint of a giggle in the back of his throat. “I’d hate to have to remind ‘im how to settle a negotiation.”
“Please, Mr. Boucher,” Percy Astor said with forced patience as they emerged into the glade. “I trust you to handle certain portions of our operation. I ask you to let me handle my portion without interference.”
Ezekiel came into the glade, Ambrose's Gewehr in his hands. To Milo’s supreme irritation, there wasn’t a burn on the cowboy or his grotesque outfit. Milo still wanted to end the curse to save Rihyani, but he had a new secondary objective for seeing the magic undone: to hurt Ezekiel Boucher.
“Captain Saakadze,” Percy said in Georgian as he followed the scalp hunter out. The captain was a fiercely mustachioed man in a black chokha, hot on his heels. “I can understand your trepidation at the progression of events, but that is why we agreed to pay you a very handsome sum, including for those unfortunate enough to have lost their lives in this endeavor.”
The man in the chokha who must have been Captain Saakadze shook his head hard enough to make the tips of his mustache waggle.
“It is not a matter of money,” the mercenary commander declared in a sharp tone that softened as he snatched a nervous glance around the glade. “All the money in the world is of no use if we are all dead. You don’t know the stories they tell of this vale.”
Astor and Ezekiel paused and shared a look Milo couldn’t read from his hiding spot. Both men turned to Saakadze, their posture almost eager.
“What stories?” Percy demanded.
Saakadze balked under their combined scrutiny, his weathered features paling before he gathered himself. Straightening and clearing his throat to speak matter-of-factly, he managed to meet both men’s eyes.
“The Lost Vale
is a warning to rebellious children and a ghost story,” the commander said, his face coloring at the admission, which was all the more striking for how pale he’d been. “Runaway brides disappear when they go to the Dobilni that live within the vale or invading armies being led into the Vale to never again emerge except as wails of dying men.”
“You're telling us this now?” Ezekiel snorted, a titter at the back of his throat. “When we’re already in here? Sounds like too little, too late, partner?”
Saakadze didn’t bother to hide his disgust for the scalp hunter.
“I thought they were just stories!” he growled, hands tightening on his carbine. “It wasn’t until the gorge turned into this place that I realized what was happening, and then you were racing off to chase them!”
Ezekiel spat at the commander’s feet but turned to Percy, lifting the brim of his hat with a thumb.
“You figure those pixie lovers went to ground because they got friends here?” Ezekiel asked before throwing a look over his shoulder at the standing stones.
Mr. Astor nodded as he gingerly massaged his bandaged hand.
“There is more than a good chance,” Percy said, his voice dropping so Milo strained to hear each word. “Which would make pursuing them further highly inadvisable.”
Milo silently swore as he felt the moment slipping away.
The three mercenaries running point were in sight of Ambrose’s position, but the rest were too far back. Having thrown the knife away, they needed to take Ezekiel, but if they pulled back, there was no reason to think they’d have a better shot, and they didn’t have time to track him down again. They needed to give them a reason to move into the glade.
“Making a bad idea worse.” Milo sighed and then stepped out from behind the standing stone.
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