Procopio carefully hid his elation. To do battle against Crinti warriors! He had dreamed of such battles hundreds of times. He had planned strategies and tested the results. This opportunity was one he had desired for a very long time! Yet he kept his voice level, his face skeptical. “What, precisely, would you like me to do?”
“You are the lord mayor of this city. Surely you have some militia under your command. Claim your great powers of divination have perceived a threat from the Crinti, and argue that because of your studies, you are better prepared to counter this threat than any other man. I will tell you where many of their camps and caves are hidden. You will win fame for this victory, and when you predict the coming of Mulhorandi troops, people will take notice.”
“A compelling argument,” Procopio conceded. “And if the militia requires some substantiation?”
“Two of your former jordaini travel the Nath. Report to the king your concern for these young men, the troubling visions you have received. I will use my influence with the Crinti to have the jordaini captured. Send a scouting party to ‘rescue’ them. When they return to the king’s city spouting tales of Crinti atrocities, you will appear to be a true prophet.”
“Agreed,” Procopio said promptly, “but I warn you, I have studied every possible variation of battle strategy in the northern hills. Your Crinti cannot trick me, and you had better not attempt to betray me.”
“Why would I?” she countered. “You wish to prove yourself in battle, I wish to see the Crinti banished. You wish to replace Zalathorm, and you will need the chaos I have proven myself capable of providing. And I wish to dance on Zalathorm’s grave.”
Never had Procopio heard words infused with such venom or seen such hatred as that shining in Kiva’s eyes. “Perhaps I have reason to trust you, after all.”
“Test me and see!”
The elf woman planted her feet wide and squeezed her amber eyes closed. Procopio quickly cast a small spell of divination to probe her motives.
Instantly he was engulfed by an icy storm of emotion, a glacier of resolve. So intense was Kiva’s passion for vengeance that Procopio experienced it as a physical blow. A violent chill shuddered through him, and he stumbled back on legs suddenly stiff and numb.
“Why?” he managed.
“As long as you’re satisfied with my sincerity, why should you care?” The elf woman threw her arms out wide and began to spin like a child at play. Her feet lifted from the floor. She continued to whirl as she took flight, diminishing and rising as quickly as the winged horse had done. In moments she was gone—a tiny tempest that had struck and moved on.
Kiva stepped out of the whirling spell into the bleak terrain of the northlands. She continued to spin, however, laughing and circling in a giddy little dance. This was too delightful! A wizard-lord stood willing and eager to bring forces to the Nath! The Crinti would crush them like ants beneath an ox’s hooves! Not incidentally, Procopio’s foray would drain the king’s city of its defenses.
She had told Procopio the truth—in a manner of speaking. Yes, Zalathorm would fall, but not yet, not this way. Warriors’ blood would flow in this invasion. Only the blood of wizards could quench Kiva’s wrath.
Procopio’s kingly ambitions would have to wait. For now, let Zalathorm sit his throne, his eyes fixed upon his troubled borders. Perhaps then he would not realize that the true danger lay in his own land, in the very heart of Halruaa.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Andris watched as Kiva strode into the camp, nodding to the watchful Crinti but coming directly to his side. “We are leaving,” she said abruptly.
He rose slowly from his place by the campfire. “Everyone?”
“We two. I want to be beneath the trees of the Mhair before highsun.”
She chanted an incantation and reached out her hand to him. As soon as he touched her fingers, they were both swallowed in a whirling haze of soft white light. Andris expected a whistle of wind, a sense of motion. There was nothing but the light, and a quiet so intense that the beating of his own heart sounded like crashing surf.
The light deepened, turning the golden green of sunlight filtered through a forest canopy, and the white silence unfolded into the lush cacophony of the jungle. Birds chuckled and called in the branches overhead. Frogs belched in nearby shallows. Insects whined and hummed. In the distance, a snarl spoke of a jungle cat’s unsuccessful hunt. Lying beneath the complex clatter was the soft, pulsing song of the forest, never before audible to his ears.
This, Andris suspected, was what an elf heard—the voice of life, and of magic! As his hearing adjusted to its normal level of sensitivity, the song faded. He felt like a blind man, granted a moment of tantalizing sight, then plunged back into oblivious darkness.
“You look disappointed,” an amused Kiva said. “Magical travel didn’t live up to expectations?”
Andris had no desire to explain. “I am not unhappy to leave the Nath and the Crinti camp. But why return to the Mhair?”
Kiva cupped her hands to her lips and let out a high, ringing cry. Sweet and musical enough to be mistaken as birdsong, the call was not exceptionally loud. Yet Andris got the impression that it soared though the forest on quiet wings. A message had been sent.
They settled down in the lower branches of a flowering tree, keeping a watchful eye on the forest around them. Suddenly Kiva dropped from her branch, and lifted one hand in greeting to the elves who emerged from the deep green shadows. Andris shook his head in astonishment. He had not seen or heard their approach.
He climbed down and walked to Kiva’s side. The elves were familiar—all had fought with them at the Lady’s Mirror—but there was no welcome in their eyes. At their head was Nadage, the battle leader Kiva had turned into a raider.
“You are no longer clan, Kiva,” the elf said solemnly. “This forest is closed to you. Walk beneath other trees, or die.”
Kiva bowed her head in acceptance of this sentence. “If you will join me, I will walk beneath the trees of Akhlaur’s Swamp.”
An expression of utter disbelief flashed across the elf’s copper face. “Is it your life task to destroy what remains of the Mhair elves?”
“The laraken is gone. Elves can walk the swamp in safety.”
“Even so, walk among the crystal ghosts of our family, our friends? You ask too much.”
“Too much?” She spoke the words softly, but gave them weight and emphasis. “What price would be too high to see the wizard Akhlaur destroyed?”
“He was human. Why are you so certain he still lives?”
Kiva shrugged. “Alive, dead. It matters not Akhlaur was a necromancer, a wizard who deals in the mysteries of life and death. I know that he prepared a lich spell—I saw him do it. When his body dies, his evil may well live on. If that comes to pass, where can any elf walk in safety?”
Indecision washed over the elf leader’s face. “You have led us false before. How can we trust you in this?”
“That is precisely my point,” Kiva argued. “Would you accept word of Akhlaur’s death from my lips? Or would your Reverie finally know peace if you scattered his bones with your own hands? Go with me to the swamp. I will defeat him, and bring him to you.”
Cibrone, the shaman, threw up her small hands in disgust “How could you defeat a wizard who destroyed hundreds of elves?”
Kiva took a small book from her pack. Andris recognized it as the spellbook he had taken from the Jordaini College. Her face was somber as she held it up. “This holds Akhlaur’s secrets. Your touch senses magic, Cibrone. Test the truth of my claim.”
The shaman reached out with hesitant fingers and touched the delicate, yellowed leather binding. Her face paled as an unexpected truth came to her. She snatched her hand away from the grim book, then smoothed her fingers over it in a small, sad caress.
“Filora,” she said in broken tones. “My sister.”
Chagrin washed over Kiva’s face—real or feigned, Andris could not say. “I did not know this, Cibro
ne. But I can see that you, at least, understand me. You know what things the necromancer has done. Sooner or later, Akhlaur will win free of his prison. He has already learned how to send one of his monsters through the floodgate. Did you know that the laraken escaped into the world of water? That Akhlaur can take from the laraken all the magic the monster steals? Can you imagine how quickly his power will grow?
“Akhlaur must be stopped,” Kiva asserted. “Here. Now. For two hundred years I have studied his magic. I know how he can be defeated, and I believe I can do it if we move with all haste. If I fail, what loss to you? You will not mourn me overmuch.”
The elves considered, debating the matter in their eloquent silent speech.
“We will go,” Nadage said at last. “This evil must be stopped. Yet know this, Kiva: If you spill innocent blood again or endanger the People needlessly, you will never leave the swamp.”
“So be it Prepare your warriors, and bring the undine with you.”
This took the elf leader by surprise. “Why?”
“Akhlaur’s tower is deep under water. The undine can retrieve the treasures from it—things I will need to follow Akhlaur and subdue him.”
“I will ask her,” Nadage said hesitantly, “but I will not ask her to follow you into the world of water.”
“Nor would I! She is a creature of magic. The laraken dwells there and would be her death.”
Nadage nodded, and the elves disappeared into the trees. Kiva and Andris waited throughout that day and most of the next before the band reappeared with the undine—a slender, white-skinned maiden with raven hair and a beautiful, ageless face. Small, delicate white wings framed her shoulders, shaped like those of a deep-diving bird. Andris barely recognized the scalded, suffering creature they had taken from the waters of the Lady’s Mirror. Seeing her now, he understood why pilgrims who glimpsed her face believed they were granted a vision of the goddess.
However, as the long march to the swamp went on, the undine’s beauty faded. The elves moved swiftly, covering more ground that Andris would have thought possible. He considered himself strong and fit, but he had difficulty keeping the pace. It was brutally hard on the undine, who appeared thinner and more fragile every time Andris looked at her.
When they entered the Swamp of Akhlaur, a pall settled upon the spirits of the elves. The air was as dank as an open grave. As they made their way through moss-draped trees, long filaments brushed at them like lifeless fingers. Each crystal ghost the elves passed was an occasion for mourning. Kiva urged them on, and after a while they took to singing their keening laments in time to their step, like a mournful marching song.
Andris, too, was forced to confront his dead. On the second day into the swamp, they reached the site of the battle with the laraken.
The jungle was already reclaiming the battlefield. Foliage scarred by the fireball battle between Kiva and Tzigone had healed and grown. Flowering vines entwined the naked rib cage of the lion-centaur who had died protecting his elf mistress. Andris was grateful that he did not have to gaze upon the actual bones of his comrades. Lacking tools for burial, they had weighted down the bodies and dropped them into a deep pool nearby.
A wave of odor slammed into him—a stench so foul that it made Andris dizzy with nausea. It was familiar, but for a moment Andris could not identify it.
“Kilmaruu,” he murmured, remembering the battle in the swamp and the rank scent of long-drowned men.
Andris reached in his bag for the pot of pungent ointment he’d prepared for that battle. He smeared a quick dab under his nose to help block the smell. Tossing it to Kiva, he pulled his sword and dropped into a battle-ready stance. Behind him, the elves followed suit
A rotting, swollen corpse blundered through the foliage. Its puffy hand drew back and hurled something brown and wet at Andris. His sword leaped up to bat it away, easily cutting through the spongy missile. Two halves of a vampire leech—each the size of his fist—writhed at his feet.
A shudder ran through Andris. The leeches were as voracious as their namesakes, and nearly impossible to dislodge. If the leech had hit a living target, it would have sucked enough blood to fill a wine bottle before they could cut it off.
The undead creature came on, pulling a sword from a rusty scabbard. Andris stepped in and blocked the attack. The “sword” snapped in two as easily as a dried reed. It was no warrior’s weapon, but a thin, hollow tube.
Andris darted a gaze to the corpse’s chest. A groan escaped him as he noted the stab wound to the heart, almost obscured by the pale, puffy flesh around it. This had been Dranth, a jordaini student who had left the college with a “debilitating illness”—as spurious a claim as the one that added Andris to Kiva’s ranks. Dranth had died in the swamp, slain by a giant stirge. The weapon in Dranth’s undead hand was that which had dealt his deathblow: a stirge’s snout.
There was no intelligence in the dead eyes, nothing at all of Dranth. That made Andris’s task somewhat easier. With three quick strokes, he beheaded the walking corpse and ran his sword through the already-shattered heart.
Dranth was dead, Andris reminded himself as he stooped to wipe the foul pus from his sword.
A whimper of inarticulate terror came from behind him. Andris glanced back at the undine. The watermaid managed to stand upright only because Cibrone linked a supporting arm around her waist Both females stared at the beheaded zombie with revulsion and sorrow. Andris knew enough of elves to realize their great respect for the afterlife. The notion of an animated corpse was abhorrent to them.
A ragged, gurgling wail rose from a vine-shrouded copse of trees. The jordain spun away and stalked toward the new threat, bent on destroying the animated bodies of his former comrades.
Themo arrived at the travel hut two days late, flushed with sun and excitement and ready for adventure. Any doubts Matteo might have had about his decision to meddle in Themo’s life dissolved at the sight of the big man’s grin. He leaped from his horse and swept Matteo up into a bone-crushing embrace.
“What did you say to old Ferris to get him to turn me loose?”
Matteo managed a faint smile. “Wouldn’t you rather know what we’re hunting?”
Themo listened intently, nodding and offering an occasional suggestion. His spirits were high as the three jordaini rode out, following the Crinti trail deeper into the hills, expecting ambush with every bush and cave they passed. Trail sign was plentiful, but never once did they see their prey.
“Not much sport to this,” Themo complained after a few hours.
Matteo and Iago exchanged glances. “Perhaps his sword is sharper than his mind,” the small jordain said sarcastically.
“During my time with Procopio Septus, I often joined the wizard in games of war,” Matteo began, deftly cutting off Themo’s indignant response. “He had a wondrous table, a raised map shaped much like this wild land. With it were hundreds of tiny figures that moved and fought. He commanded them to enact battles so we could observe the field from above, as a god might, and better understand how the battle played out. Sometimes we would play the same battle again and again with variations to learn what worked and what did not.”
A wistful smile crossed the big man’s face. “That would be worth seeing!”
“It was enlightening, certainly. One strategy concerned an airborne wizard—one of the deadliest of foes. We jordaini know to increase chances of success by keeping the wizards on the ground. So do the Crinti. They generally keep to the caves or the deep woods. But this path is not sheltered, and it leads to increasingly open ground. This is not typical Crinti behavior.”
“None of us are wizards,” reasoned Themo.
“True enough, but strategies that prove successful are not abandoned lightly. The Crinti would not take such a path without a purpose.” Matteo paused and looked toward the western sky. Only a crimson rim was visible above the hills. “Because this is the Nath, we have additional concerns.”
Like the voice of an actor taking a cue, the
wail of a dark fairy rose from the hills. “The Crinti fear the Unseelie folk, yet they are leading us deeper and deeper into haunted lands.”
Iago shot a furtive glance toward the sound. “Maybe the shadow amazons are like quail, pretending to have a wounded wing and luring danger away from the nest.”
“Or perhaps the Crinti are not leading us away from something but toward it.”
“An ambush, most likely,” Themo muttered, studying his surroundings with new interest
Matteo considered this a logical assumption. The Crinti trail led through a winding, narrow pass, past small dark caves and tumbled piles of rock. They emerged from the passage unscathed into a large clearing—and the strangest place he had ever beheld.
“By lord and lady,” he whispered. He slid down from his horse.
Large, conical mounds rose from the ground, covered with green moss. Some of the hills barely rose to Matteo’s shoulder, but most were at least twice the height of a man.
The air seemed different in the clearing. Just beyond the pass, the sky had held the brilliant clear sapphire common to a summer sunset, and the few small clouds that clung to the mountaintops were gold and crimson and purple. Here all was gray mist and land-bound clouds. Much of the Nath was either scrubby forest or barren waste, but here the ground and the hills were covered with lush, light green moss, such as might be found only in the deepest forest. Matteo had the uncanny feeling that the rugged pass had led them not into a sheltered clearing but into another world.
“Never have I seen so enchanted a place,” he murmured in awe.
“Enchanted!” Themo sent him a sour look. “You’ve been spending too much time around wizards.”
The big man’s face was unnaturally pale, and he shifted his weight from one foot to another, looking fully as spooked as the skittish horses.
Iago placed a hand on his shoulder. “That’s what I told him, Themo.” He sent Matteo an apologetic look, his eyes cutting quickly to Themo and back. Matteo, understanding, gave a slight nod. Themo was fond of gossip, and a diversion was definitely in order. “Did you know that Matteo spends every spare hour with the girl who called the laraken?”
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