To his left, Soterius saw Mikhail engage another of the madmen, while across the way, Tadrie and one of the other refugee fighters were holding their own against the last of the attackers, keeping him at bay until a third refugee hurled a large rock at the madman's head. The madman fell and lay still.
Soterius looked around. From the position of the moon, barely a candlemark had passed since they attacked the Margolan soldiers. "Check the bodies!" he shouted. "Don't leave any of our own!" Grimly, the men still on their feet began to check the fallen, dispatching one or two of the badly wounded Margolan soldiers who had not yet died with a merciful sword strike.
One of the fighters was already calming the horses, and after carefully checking the box that was still hitched to the harness, he waved for his fellows to begin the grim work of bringing the dead and those too badly wounded to walk into the wagon.
"A little assistance, if you please." Mikhail did not even sound winded, although he pinned the last of the berserker fighters in his grip. Soterius, Pell, and Tabb ran to help him, grabbing rope from the soldiers' packs. They trussed up the struggling madman from shoulders to ankles, taking no chances. The man struggled and bucked with his full might, but where Soterius should have expected a captured soldier to curse them and spew profanities the berserker raged incoherently. Up close, the madness in the captured man's eyes was even more disturbing, as if his humanity had been stripped away, leaving something feral in its place. Soterius noted as they bound the man that the prisoner was badly wounded, with deep gashes that would have disabled a normal soldier.
"Let's get them to the healers," Soterius sighed, wiping the blood off his hands in the snow. Mikhail lifted the trussed-up madman with immortal ease; the wagon shuddered when Mikhail dropped his cargo in. Pell counted as they loaded bodies and wounded men into the wagon, while Sahila took roll among the surviving fighters. Three of their own were dead. Three more, including Tadrie, were too badly wounded to walk back to camp.
"Let's get that arm bound before you need the wagon, too." Mikhail stood next to him, with strips of cloth Soterius bet the vayash moru had torn from one of the dead men's shirts. As usual, he had not heard his friend approach. Soterius let Mikhail bind up his arm, just now becoming aware of how much it throbbed, and that he could no longer feel his feet in the bitter cold.
"We lost too many," Soterius sighed, looking over the bloody snow.
"They fought well against the regular soldiers," Mikhail observed. "But what came out of that wagon-we didn't train for that."
"What were they?" Soterius did not expect an answer.
"Ashtenerath." It was Tadrie who spoke, from where he sat huddled in the back of the wagon-box, as Pell did his best to dress the farmer's wounds. Soterius frowned, recognizing the term from old tales.
"Awakened dead?" Soterius replied, meeting Mikhail's gaze. "Those are just stories told to scare children."
"Not necessarily," Mikhail said quietly.
"That man... was my brother-in-law," Tadrie said haltingly, shivering with the cold. Andras stripped cloaks from the dead soldiers and distributed them among the wounded and survivors. "He was taken by Margolan troops six months ago. We thought he was dead. Better for him if he had been," Tadrie said, still obviously shaken by the encounter. "The Lady forgive me. I had no choice but to kill him, although I don't know how to tell my wife." He shook his head. "Then again, that... thing... wasn't really him, at least, not in his right mind."
"What do you mean, 'not necessarily?'" Soterius looked from Tadrie to Mikhail. Pell finished binding up Tadrie's wounds and stepped back, closing up the wagon doors for the slow trip back to the refugee camp. Soterius and Mikhail, two of the least wounded, led the group. Andras guided the horses with Tabb as guard, and Sahila and Pell brought up the rear.
"During the Mage War, the Obsidian King was able to reanimate corpses on the battlefield," Mikhail said as they walked. "I didn't see it myself, thank Istra, but I knew men who saw it first-hand. Such fighters were of little use other than to terrify their comrades."
"So such a thing is possible?" Soterius remembered the story Carroway had told him, about the vengeful woman's ghost who had tried to possess Carina as Tris and the others were fleeing toward Principality. And while Soterius knew that Carroway was often given to exaggeration to make a tale better, the bard had sworn to him that in this case, the truth needed no embellishment. In Carroway's recounting, Tris had fought the dead woman's ghost for control of Carina's body. In throwing clear the vengeful spirit, he had accidentally cast it back into the woman's corpse, momentarily reanimating her until Vahanian struck her down with a sword.
Mikhail nodded. "But I don't think that's what we fought tonight. The man I captured was alive. Although... there was something that didn't feel right. I suspect that we're dealing with blood magic."
"Prince Martris is a Summoner," Andras said from behind him. "Perhaps he could raise us a whole army from the dead."
Mikhail turned. "I don't doubt that Tris is strong enough to do just that. But no Summoner who serves the Light would do so, on peril of his own soul."
"But we need everything we can get to defeat Jared!" Andras argued.
Soterius shook his head. "I think I know what Mikhail means. And it's the same reason Bricen forbade his troops to torture, even when we fought the Nargi, and even when we knew they tortured our captives. Bricen knew that you can't use the means of the enemy without becoming them. Tris wouldn't do it-and I won't ask him to."
"Arontala isn't a Summoner," Mikhail said. "He doesn't have the magic to reanimate corpses. But if, with his magic and his drugs he could break a man utterly, tamper with his mind, leaving only pain and anger-then I think it would be possible to create such a monster."
The unbroken snow of the countryside was serene in the moonlight. It did not take much imagination to envision what would happen if more Margolan troops returned, with greater numbers of ashtenerath.
"How do we train to fight those things?" Soterius wondered aloud.
"We tell the refugees that such an enemy is likely. We warn them that it may be their own family members, enslaved to Arontala, tortured and broken into submission, doomed to a living hell. We let them know that to kill an ashtenerath is to free it from torment. It will be worse to encounter a friend or relative who willingly serves Jared. That will also happen."
"It was even worse when you fought the Obsidian King, wasn't it?" Soterius asked.
Mikhail's eyes were haunted. "I saw things that I can't speak of. And it will be like that again if Tris can't stop Arontala."
Soterius shivered. "Then we'd better prepare the fighters to come up against their worst nightmares."
In the refugee camp, Esme the healer waited for them. Blue-eyed, red-haired Esme was one of the court healers. Soterius had known her for years. Willowy and tall, Esme was just a bit shorter than Soterius. She was the daughter of a tin trader, who had risen to a court position on the merits of her talent alone. Many times, she had come to the barracks to attend the soldiers' wounds, and Soterius had discovered the way to win Esme's friendship. Esme respected commanders who kept their soldiers from preventable injury. Her disdain for those who did not, who considered their enlisted men to be disposable, could be scathing. Finding her in the refugee camp was an unexpected boon. After one of Soterius' trips back to Staden's palace, Carina had gladly helped Soterius provision Esme for battle healing, to ease the suffering among the refugees.
Esme waited at the edge of camp for Soterius and the others to return. A cry went up from some of the waiting refugees as they realized that their loved ones were not among the soldiers walking back from the encounter. Frightened family members clustered around the soldiers and the cart, making it difficult for the group to reach the clearing in the center of the camp. When they stopped, Soterius and Mikhail went back to unload the wagon, while Tabb and Andras helped Esme prepare pallets in one of the larger tents and Pell kept the horses still amid the confusion.
Mourners keened as Soterius and Mikhail carefully bore the dead to their relatives. Soterius watched the three men's widows embrace each other, weeping, as frightened children wailed, clinging to their skirts. And although he assured them that their husbands died with valor, the words tasted of ash in his mouth.
Soterius followed to where Esme and her small group of hedge witches and healer trainees attended the wounded fighters. Already, the healers had made a noticeable difference in the men's injuries. Soterius waited patiently as the healers worked, lending a hand as Carina had often required of him, and stopping to speak to each of his men who was conscious to praise and reassure. Mikhail stood watch at the makeshift hospital's doorway, keeping the gawkers and family members at bay until Esme and the healers were finished.
When the last of the fighters was healed and out of danger, Soterius guided Esme to the back of the tent. The trussed up ashtenerath lay still, but when he saw them approach, he began once more to buck and cry out unintelligibly. Esme's eyes widened and she backed up a step at the ferocity of the man's response.
"Tadrie called him 'ashtenerath,'" Soterius said. Esme gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
"Truly?"
"I'd like you to confirm what he is. And while we don't dare let him loose, he is wounded. We need to patch him up."
"I'll do what I can."
Mikhail moved to secure the ashtenerath fighter, holding him by the shoulders. The man's eyes glinted with pure madness, and his face was twisted in animal rage. Esme knelt next to the bound man and laid her hand across his forehead. Almost immediately the fighter slumped, unconscious.
"That 'trick' comes in handy with drunks and guys who are spoiling for a fight." Esme let her hand linger on the man's forehead and frowned, then brought her hands down over the trussed man's body, assessing his injuries. For nearly half a candlemark she worked to heal the worst of his wounds. Then she sat back on her heels.
"We'll, that's a new one." She shook her head, looking at the still unconscious prisoner.
"What did you find?" Soterius bent lower, on alert.
The red haired healer chewed her lip as she mulled over what her healing senses had told her. "Mikhail's right-this man isn't dead. There's no decay. And he's not undead. A vayash moru feels... .different. There's actually nothing different about his body from you or me. But his mind-"
"What?"
Esme stared at the ashtenerath fighter. "I tried to treat a man once who was bitten by a dog with the foaming disease. He was like a wild animal, willing to strike at anything that came near, kill anyone in reach. Almost got myself killed, and did no one any good," she added ruefully. "That's what he reminds me of."
"Is it a disease?" Soterius asked.
"No. That's not what I meant. I could sense the changes in the brain of the man with the foaming disease. It had been changed by the sickness-damaged so badly that I couldn't put it right. That's what's happened here, but it's not a disease that did it. It was blood magic-I can feel the traces of it."
"So Arontala did this?"
Esme nodded. "When I was healing him, I could tell that there were fairly new injuries that hadn't healed right. He's been tortured, probably to the point of breaking. Traces of drugs, too-the kind that never really leave the body completely. There are some strong potions-some of the mystics use them-that can give a man visions or horrible nightmares that seem real, down to every sense and smell. But there are also the changes in his brain. Changes somebody meant to put there.
"I've tried to heal enough patients with head injuries to know that if you get hit hard enough in the right places, different things happen. Get hit just so and you remember what you did ten years ago, but you can't remember what you ate for breakfast. Take a lump somewhere else, and the sweetest old lady will become a screaming shrew." Esme looked at the prisoner for a moment, tight-lipped in anger. "Someone's deliberately damaged him, trying to create just what you see-something that looks like a man but acts like a crazed beast. At least he won't suffer for long."
"What do you mean?"
Esme looked up at Soterius, and he could see in her blue eyes that she was upset. "The changes are too great to last for long. He's burning himself out. I can feel him dying-and it's not the injuries from the battle. Those, I healed. But all the same, he'll be dead by morning." She laid a hand on the madman's forehead once more, and her lips moved quietly. After a moment, the man's form relaxed, just a little, though he still tensed and twitched from time to time.
"I've done what I can for his pain," Esme said. "Part of the madness that made him attack you was sheer agony from the ways he's been altered. The human part of his mind is gone-what's left has no more reasoning ability than a stampeding bull." She looked to Soterius again, and her eyes hardened with anger. "If this is what Arontala can do-and what Jared permits-then sign me up as a battle healer. I'm with you."
Soterius managed a smile. "Carina's shown me what an advantage it is to have a healer with you in a fight. But you're needed here, Esme. These refugees won't stop taking sick and having babies just because there's a war on. And the men will fight better, knowing their kinfolk are as safe as we can make them."
Esme sighed. "You're right, of course. But just knowing that someone did this to him deliberately makes me want to knock some heads together!"
Soterius laughed. "I've seen Carina in a fight. Never underestimate an angry healer with a quarterstaff!"
The laughter quickly faded, and Soterius and Mikhail sat down with Esme next to the unconscious prisoner. "Can you tell how long ago the changes were made to him?" Soterius asked with a nod toward the ashtenerath fighter.
"The scars from the torture are several months old. And from the amount of the drugs left in his system, I'd say he'd been drugged for quite a while. But the changes in his brain were new-about a month old, no more."
"At that rate, Arontala can't afford to make too many of these," Mikhail observed. "Tadrie said his brother-in-law disappeared six months ago. If it takes five months to capture and break a prisoner and they only survive for a month after they're turned into a weapon, then we're unlikely to face whole armies of these things-at least, for long."
Soterius nodded. "It's like the mage monsters that Arontala called along the Dhasson border, and the ones that Tris ran into the night they found Kiara. Those things are horrible killing machines, but Tris says it takes so much magic to raise them and control them that even a mage as strong as Arontala can't keep it up for long. And they can't breed on their own. Thank the Lady, or we'd probably be overrun with the things!"
"Could Arontala have help?" Mikhail asked.
Soterius frowned. "In all the years we put up with that cursed mage at Shekerishet, I never saw him in the company of other magic users. I can't imagine him sharing any of his power or secrets with anyone. I've heard tell of other dark mages from time to time. Maybe they're taking advantage of all the havoc to cause some problems of their own. But I just can't picture Arontala working with anyone."
"I hope you're right," Mikhail said.
Soterius looked back at the prisoner, who twitched and moaned even in his sleep. "Can the vayash moru help to keep the ashtenerath at bay? You were able to subdue him a whole lot easier than we could have."
"Had his axe taken off my head or cut me through the heart, I'd be as dead as the rest now. We may be undead, but we can still be destroyed. So it's not without risk. But you're right-assuming we can get close enough, our strength and speed should give us an advantage in restraining one of these things long enough for someone else to make a strike. I'll let the recruits among my people know, and we'll prepare."
Soterius looked over his shoulder, toward the wounded men who lay on pallets in the makeshift hospital tent. "We'll have to prepare the fighters as we recruit them. At least now that we know that the ashtenerath are in pain and won't live long, maybe our men will see it as a kindness to kill them, especially if it's someone they knew." He sighed. "By the Whore! This war hasn't even start
ed yet, and it's already a nightmare."
Mikhail jerked his head toward the refugee camp outside the hospital tent walls. "When they find out what Arontala does to his captives, you may have the most motivated troops in Margolan's history."
"By Chenne, we're going to need it."
Chapter Seven
Tris resumed his lessons with Royster within a day of his return to the palace. Although not fully recovered from his training with the Sisterhood, Tris was driven by the knowledge that time was passing quickly. It was already the Crone Moon, the last month of the year, and Winterstide would soon be upon them. And while he had begged off of a return to the salle and climbing practice for a few days, even that could not be postponed for long. There was far too much to learn, and too little time.
Tris and Royster continued their lessons in the palace library. A huge fireplace, easily the height of a tall man and twice a man's length, held a roaring fire that barely warmed the room. Royster focused on history and legend, and on the complex wording of powerful incantations. Tris was physically and mentally weary, but he knew he could not allow himself the luxury of rest.
"What do you know of Winterstide?" Royster's voice shook Tris out of his thoughts.
Tris searched his memories. Bricen had not been overly devout, and Margolan's celebrations had lacked some of the pious observances of other kingdoms.
"Winterstide is the winter solstice," Tris said, trying his best to remember. "The longest night of the year. The spirit realm is closer then, as it is at the Hawthorn Moon, on the summer solstice. On those nights, the division between the realms is fragile." He paused. "At Winterstide, the spirits are closer because the realms are out of balance, and the scales in the hand of the Lady tip toward the realm of the dead. After the night of solstice, the days grow longer again, until the balance is restored again in the spring when day and night become equal. Then, the balance tips once more, until the Hawthorn Moon."
Royster nodded. "What do you know of the role of a Summoner on Winterstide?"
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