Mistress of Masks

by C. Greenwood

  Then he was gone, and she was left staring after him, wondering if she had said good-bye to her friend for the last time. But she couldn’t think that way now. There was a fight ahead, and she needed all the courage she could muster to get through whatever the day brought.

  Scrambling up onto the wall, she looked for Orrick. He found her first.

  “Take this,” he instructed, tossing her a short pike. She didn’t ask where he had come by the weapon. The seclusionary didn’t exactly have an armory on hand, so she was lucky he had found her anything at all. Torolf and his fighting men were well armed at least. One of them, Rik she thought Torolf called him, even carried a large crossbow. He had placed himself above the gates where he would have a clear shot at anyone attempting to batter them down.

  Ignoring the way the other defenders positioned themselves at intervals, Eydis stuck close to Orrick’s reassuring presence. She suspected he knew how to handle himself better than anyone here. Best not to remember her vision of him betraying her or his mysterious meeting with the strange assassin. To get through whatever came her way, she needed to shove her doubts aside and have faith in her companions and in the First Mother, who had led them all this far.

  The enemy horde closed the distance until they were only a hundred yards away. It was possible to make out details of the individuals now. Eydis’s eyes were again drawn to their leader, whose expression was feverishly intense, his eyes seeming to glow with determination to claim victory for his dark master.

  But there was something different about the army at his back. Something wasn’t right with them. Their movements were stiff, their clothing tattered, their bodies wasted. Closer and closer they came until she could see that pieces of their bodies, limbs, and faces were missing or decayed. Horrified, she realized aloud, “Those are no mortal soldiers. They’re reanimated corpses.”

  Orrick looked unsurprised. With the superior eyesight of his race, he must have noticed already. He said, “Aye, I’ve seen their kind. There were undead in the army that attacked us at Endguard. I’ve warned Torolf to spread the word among his men. There’s only one way to stop a living corpse—demolish it. Beheading is best, but if you can’t manage that, sever the limbs or put out the eyes. You can’t kill what’s already dead but you can obliterate its carcass.”

  Eydis watched the approaching masses pick up speed. In moments they would crash against the wall like waves against a rock.

  “I guess this is my last chance to tell you,” she heard herself say to Orrick. “In case you survive and I don’t, I want to keep my end of our bargain. About Arik the One-Eyed—”

  But before she could finish, the horde below raised a loud battle cry that echoed over the seclusionary, freezing Eydis’s heart with fear.

  She looked back over her shoulder and reassured herself the adherents were already disappearing into the safety of the escape tunnel in the courtyard. Geveral stood to one side, beneath the spreading branches of the great tree, motioning the women and children through the entrance. He was doing his part. She must do hers.

  The enemy smashed into the gates, the barrier bulging beneath their combined strength. For the moment, it held. At Torolf’s shouted command, the bowman directed his arrows into the seething mass below. His arrows arced through the air as swiftly as he could aim and load, slamming into the bodies of the soldiers at the gate. But though Eydis saw many an arrow hit its mark, the enemy seemed almost unaffected by their wounds. They kept coming.

  Some of the defenders had gathered heaps of rocks. They threw them off the wall now, the heavier missiles dashing in the heads of enemy soldiers. But the attackers spread out now, some continuing their onslaught against the gates while others brought out grappling hooks and tall ladders to breach the wall. Eydis saw one metal hook sail over the wall and snag on a ledge. Instantly a string of undead soldiers began climbing up the line. One of Torolf’s men cut the rope and the climbers fell to their deaths. Others replaced them immediately.

  Eydis kept her searching gaze on the horde below, but she couldn’t spot their leader anymore. She had a vague idea that to destroy him and his amulet was the surest way to hurt the enemy. But the coward must be holding back from the fight.

  With a heavy thud, a wooden ladder slammed against the wall near her, and a stream of soldiers began ascending. Eydis ran to the edge and tried to shove the ladder out, but it was heavy with the weight of the soldiers. She couldn’t budge the thing. A second later, Orrick was at her side, and pushing together, they toppled it. The ladder had no sooner shattered on the ground below than another took its place farther along the wall. Eydis would have run to that one too but was distracted by a deep groaning, splintering sound. The entrance gates, not built to withstand the battering they were receiving, were about to give way. Eydis couldn’t decide where to focus her attention. The assault came from too many fronts.

  “Eydis!” She whirled at Orrick’s warning shout, narrowly avoiding the curved blade of a scythe that had been swung at her head. She didn’t know where the undead creature before her had come from, but it wasn’t alone. A small group of them had somehow made it onto the wall, unnoticed. The nearest enemy flailed at her again. She backed away from his sweeping blade, looking for a weakness in his defense, a chance to dart in with the sharp tip of her pike.

  She was vaguely aware of Orrick engaging the other soldiers, but she had no space to think beyond herself and the enemy immediately in front of her. They might as well have been sparring alone. He continued his assault, and she deflected his blows with the handle of her pike. The steel of his scythe’s blade bit into the wood, sending chips of her weapon flying. If she let this continue much longer, her pike would be whittled down to a splinter. Seizing an opportunity, she ducked beneath her opponent’s guard and jabbed the spearhead of her weapon into the soft flesh of the creature’s belly.

  The undead soldier looked down, surprised, at the shaft protruding from its belly. But the creature didn’t weaken and collapse. Instead, it grabbed the pike and, to Eydis horror, shoved the weapon farther into itself, dragging Eydis nearer in the process. She dug in her heels, and the two engaged in a dangerous tugging match as her opponent tried to pull her within reach of its scythe. She couldn’t keep her distance without relinquishing her only weapon.

  Suddenly a sword swept through the air, its blade cleaving through the undead soldier’s thick neck. The creature froze for an instant, then its head toppled to the ground, followed by its motionless body. Eydis looked up to find Captain Torolf standing over the body. Before she could thank the aging soldier for his intervention, a blade erupted through his chest, planted there by an enemy who had slunk up behind him. Blood fountained from Torolf’s wound as he slid free of the blade and fell in a lifeless heap.

  With a scream of anger, Eydis snatched the dead man’s short sword and launched an assault on his killer. Under her furious onslaught, the creature backed away until a clumsily placed step sent it plunging over the edge of the wall.

  Eydis paused now. Eyes stinging with salty sweat, she wiped her brow with her forearm and realized her elbow was bleeding from a minor cut. She couldn’t remember when she had gotten it. Looking around, she saw the sky was darkening and the wind picking up. Black storm clouds rolled down from the Arxus Mountains in the distance. Thunder rolled and bolts of lightning streaked the sky, as if nature itself was turning against the defenders.

  The wall was now overrun with undead. She saw the bowman, Rik, cut down by a pair of enemies. Another of Torolf’s men ran to avenge Rik, but he too was felled.

  Then a deafening clap of thunder sounded, and a blaze of lightning shot through the air, striking a cluster of enemy soldiers. Eydis could hardly believe her eyes when the flash was gone, leaving behind only charred corpses.

  Before she could take in the freak accident, a commotion erupted below. Looking down on the evil army, she found them under assault from a new enemy. Giant fire scorpions, appearing seemingly from nowhere, stampeded through their
ranks, stingers and pincers creating havoc among the undead. The same horde of scorpions that had created destruction at the millhouse a few days ago? Maybe. But there was no time to wonder what had brought the scorpions here or whose side, if any, they were on. Even these creatures could not turn the tide of battle.

  There were only a handful of defenders left atop the wall, each of them surrounded and separated from one another. Only Orrick was within her reach. Seeing him ringed by enemy soldiers, she charged into the fray, decapitating one undead and kicking another off the wall. Orrick sliced the sword arm off another, and then Eydis was too caught up in the fight to count anymore.

  At some point she found herself back-to-back with Orrick, both of them panting for breath, and she realized they were among the last surviving defenders. They were surrounded by more undead than they could hope to hold off, and it was clear the next clash would be their last. She sensed Orrick knew it too.

  Swallowing, she asked him over her shoulder, “Any last words of advice?”

  “Just one,” he said. “Tuck your shoulders and roll with the fall.”

  She must have misheard. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Instead of answering, he spun around, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shoved her hard away from him. Then she was reliving her vision, different but the same. The look in the Kroadian’s eyes, the feel of his hands releasing their grip on her. Then the falling sensation as she plunged through the air, over the side of the wall. The world went silent as she fell, the stark figure of Orrick growing small in the distance as she dropped away.

  * * *

  She hit the ground at an awkward angle. A jolt of pain shot instantly through her hip, but her fall was otherwise cushioned by a pile of loose hay. After the initial shock and struggle to recapture the breath knocked from her, she made it to her feet and scrambled out of the hay. Ignoring the twinge in her hip, she limped to the base of the near wall and looked for a way to get back up.

  But this section was smooth and unscalable, and she knew by the time she found a way up it would be too late. There were only three or four defenders left fighting, and when they went down, the wall would be breached and the courtyard flooded with enemy soldiers. They were already defeated, she realized in a daze.

  Lightning flashed across the sky, silhouetting the clashing forms along the top of the wall. That was when she saw Orrick looking down on her from amid the melee. For an instant their gazes locked across the distance, and in that moment she suddenly saw the truth. Her betrayer hadn’t thrown her down to kill her but in an attempt to save her. It was no accident he’d carefully aimed her into that pile of hay. He turned away now and disappeared into the fighting, even as a deafening clap of thunder sounded overhead and rain began to fall.

  Blinking against the rain, Eydis looked to the dark skies, bewildered. “I don’t understand,” she called out. “Why did you show me the future if it could not be changed? Why did you lead me here if only to fail me?”

  For once the First Mother was silent.

  Then a soft sound fell on Eydis’s ears, rising over the noise of the battle and the storm. A child’s crying. Whirling, searching for the source of the sound, she saw a small girl of not more than six years, collapsed on the ground a short distance away. The little one was alone, her face mud-streaked and a trickle of blood running from a cut on her forehead. She was near the escape tunnel but made no move to cover the remaining distance. In the confusion of evacuation, she must have been left behind by the fleeing adherents.

  Eydis hesitated, torn between returning to the fight and helping the child. A soldier’s shout drew her attention back to the wall where she saw another defender fall and a dozen undead soldiers trample his corpse to leap over the edge of the wall and into the courtyard below. The seclusionary was overrun.

  Needing no further encouragement, Eydis hurried, scooping up the startled child and rushing with her toward the tunnel’s entrance. But she was too late. The mouth of the tunnel was shifting as the giant tree standing guard against the entrance trembled, its massive roots churning the earth and growing, spreading to cover the only way in. This time Geveral’s magic was working against them.

  Eydis hugged the child to her chest and shoved past the writhing tree roots that snatched at them both like living claws, trying to block their path. She forced her way past and had no sooner set foot in the tunnel when the ground shook and the earth collapsed inward.

  Knocked from her feet and buried beneath the weight of the earth, she tried to shelter the child with her body as dirt filled her nose and eyes. Panic flared. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Then suddenly, she felt the dirt shift. Hands grabbed her, digging her free of the suffocating earth.

  Spitting and coughing, she shook loose soil from her face and allowed her rescuer to take the child from her arms. When she could breathe again, she looked around and found herself enclosed by the earthen walls of the tunnel. The place was dim, the only light cast by a flickering torch. Holding the torch was her rescuer. Geveral.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, concern in his eyes. “I didn’t see you coming until it was too late and I had already begun to collapse the tunnel.”

  “Never mind. You did the right thing,” she said. “If you’d waited any longer, it would’ve been too late to keep the enemy out. How’s the girl?”

  He brushed the child’s hair out of her face. Her crying had subsided, and she had fallen strangely silent.

  “She’s only stunned,” he said. “The cut on her face is small, and I think you took most of the weight of the collapse. But we should get her out of here and catch up to the others. They’ve already gone on down the tunnel.”

  Eydis hesitated, knowing if she continued down this route, she was abandoning Orrick and the others to their fate. If they weren’t dead already.

  Geveral seemed to read her mind. “They knew what they were doing when they chose to sacrifice themselves so the rest of us could escape. Orrick tossed you off that wall for a reason.”

  He was right. Even if she wasn’t sealed inside this tunnel, even if she could find a way back, she could do nothing to stop what was happening out there. Fighting the ache in her throat, she allowed Geveral to lead her away.

  But they hadn’t proceeded far down the passage when they encountered something barring their path. A motionless body in the brown robes of an adherent.

  Dropping to her knees, Eydis rolled the woman over and found herself gazing down into the face of the Head Hearer. The Hearer was still breathing, but her breaths were ragged, her face pale and sweat-sleeked in the torchlight. She mouthed something Eydis couldn’t make out and indicated her heart.

  “The excitement has been too much for her,” Geveral murmured. More loudly, he offered words of reassurance to the suffering woman.

  But she only shook her head, her eyes on Eydis.

  Bending closer at the Hearer’s gesture, Eydis put her ear to the woman’s lips.

  “Take treasure…” the Hearer gasped weakly, pressing something into Eydis hands. A stained old kerchief bound up in a bundle.

  “What’s in this? Money?” Eydis asked, confused. The woman must be out of her mind to think of protecting her wealth at such a time.

  The Hearer shook her head and wheezed, “Not money… the Tears of the Mother… the way to the scepter…”

  Before Eydis could ask what she meant, the other woman’s eyes closed and her head lolled.

  Geveral checked for a heartbeat before confirming, “She’s gone.”

  Eydis untied the bundled kerchief and let it spill open to reveal a pile of glittering stones that sparkled like clear gems.

  “Jewels?” Geveral asked. “What would a lot of adherents be doing with such gems?”

  Eydis tilted the kerchief so the stones twinkled in the yellow torchlight. “I think,” she said, “these gems are much more than they seem.”

  She glanced up then and saw the child staring round-eyed at the dead woman. Wrapping
the stones up quickly and stuffing the kerchief into her pocket, she took the little one’s hand. “There is nothing we can do for the Hearer,” she told Geveral. “We should catch up to the others.”

  They left the lifeless Hearer behind and rushed on until they could see the glow of other torches ahead. As they attached themselves to the end of the line of fleeing adherents and children, Eydis tried not to think of whatever dangers lay before them. They had escaped destruction here today, but no one knew where this tunnel let out or what might be awaiting them at the other end.

  EPILOGUE

  BEYOND THE WALLS

  Orrick kept his head down and clung to the shadows as he crept along the outer wall of the seclusionary. Dosing himself with a careful amount of scorpion venom might have put him into a deathlike sleep, allowing him to pass for just another corpse after the battle. But it couldn’t make him invisible now that he’d clawed his way from the bottom of a pile of lifeless bodies and was on the move.

  The aftereffects of the venom had left him dizzy, and his legs felt unnaturally heavy. But some force or fate was on his side, because it was an especially black night, the moon and stars screened by clouds. No enemy soldier spotted him or cried an alarm as he limped away from the fallen seclusionary.

  That was lucky, because some scavenger had apparently robbed his “corpse” of its weapons. Even his pockets were empty. The coins from the assassin were gone, the pay he had accepted in return for his promise to ensure Eydis made it out of the battle alive. Ah, well. He probably would have done as much even without the money. After all, she was still his only link to Arik the One-Eyed. Sooner or later, if he survived this night, he would have to go looking for her.

  But not now. For tonight he couldn’t think beyond finding someplace safe to hide away and sleep off the effects of the toxin.

  WITHIN THE TUNNEL

  Geveral had to stop and lean against the wall to catch his breath. Eydis looked at him quizzically as she rushed past, but her hands were full with the injured child, so she didn’t stop to check on him. He hid his relief, which wasn’t hard to do in the gloom of the tunnel. The only illuminating light was that of the torches the fleeing adherents carried, and those were swiftly moving away, leaving him behind.