Like wolves on a wounded elk, wisps of smoke attacked her, pouring into her through her piercings. It felt like being flayed alive.
None of that prepared her for the moment it found the piercing on the inside of her thigh, still damp with fresh blood.
She cried her throat raw for Matrollis to save her from the agony, but Matrollis never came. Neither did her father when she cried for him.
There was only the sheggam, his low chuckle barely audible beneath the sounds of her screaming.
Chapter 1: Words in Blood
Tharadis crouched down with his elbow resting on his knee, his eyes taking in the horrific scene before him.
Over a hundred birds lay scattered about on the ground, unmoving except for the stir of feathers in the hot breeze rolling through the narrow, shaded alley. Tharadis recognized many of the birds, from smaller birds such as petrels and crakes to even a massive buzzard, and many more birds he’d never seen before.
All their heads were smashed, beaks twisted at sickening angles or broken off entirely. The plaster wall was painted with blood and gore, flecked with chips of bone and bits of feather. Tharadis knew what had happened. He had seen the cloud of shrieking and cawing birds dance over the rooftops before surging down this alley in a frenzy. He had even heard the birds sweep down the alley to smash into the wall before him now, the sounds of their impacts a quick succession of sickening crunches.
Yes, he knew what had happened. What he didn’t know was why.
Tharadis realized he was gripping Shoreseeker’s hilt when his fingers started to ache, so he let go and gave his hand a brief shake, admonishing himself to relax. A crowd of people were gathered behind him, clambering over each other to catch a glance. They were curious, but not alarmed. It wouldn’t do for them to see how disturbed Tharadis was by this. He was the Warden of Naruvieth; he had best act the part.
He took a calming breath and stood, turning to Rellin, his second-in-command. Rellin was old enough to be Tharadis’s father and had been second-in-command of the Shoresmen back when Tharadis’s brother had been Warden. He had doubtless seen much, but now a worried expression darkened the man’s face. His eyes met Tharadis’s.
“Send a runner for Larril,” Tharadis said. “There’s not much for us to deal with here.”
Rellin nodded, a glint of relief in his eyes, and turned to the line of six Shoresmen holding back the crowd and relayed the message to one of them. The man nodded and shouldered his way through the crowd.
Rellin turned back to Tharadis. “Should we go then?”
Tharadis could tell the man was eager to leave and let someone else deal with it. Tharadis felt a bit of that, too. He didn’t know if this … situation, or whatever it was, had anything to do with Patterning. He had little interest in such arcane matters. But he wouldn’t be doing his job as Warden if he didn’t at least ask the resident Patterner if there was something he should be worried about. “We’ll wait for him. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour for him to arrive.”
Rellin scratched at the stubble on his chin. Flecks of gray had started showing up in recent months, matching the streaks of gray in the man’s otherwise night-black hair. “What about the stranger in the plaza? And the woman in the carriage? You want me to go see them instead?”
“No. I’ll go see why they're here once Larril comes.” Tharadis turned a corner of his mouth up in a half-smile. “We’ll let them sweat a little longer.”
Rellin harrumphed. “I’m sweating in this heat.” With the back of his thick forearm, he wiped his forehead. “Outlanders? You’ll be lucky if they're not piles of ash before you get there.”
Tharadis forced himself to smile. The back of his linen tunic clung to him as if he had just gone for a swim. Foreigners would be having a tough time indeed.
But the banter felt hollow. The grisly scene behind him was an insatiable itch drawing his attention. Strangers rarely came to Naruvieth. Tharadis didn’t like the fact that they had shown up not long before the birds had committed their collective suicide.
It was bad enough that Tharadis was supposed to be preparing to leave for Garoshmir. And what if he’d decided to leave early this morning instead of tomorrow? That had been his original plan, after all, and he hadn’t really understood why he had waited an extra day. He’d just had a feeling, like he was forgetting something and if he only waited a little longer, he’d remember what it was.
Tharadis kicked the toe of his leather sandal against the alley’s loose paving stones to free a few bits of sand that had worked their way under his toes. Too many coincidences. Truth be told, Tharadis didn’t want to wait for Larril to show up. He was afraid the Patterner might actually have something to tell him.
Tharadis turned his attention to a small commotion in the crowd. Cursing and curt shouts were thrown about, and a thin, older man elbowed his way to the front.
Tharadis felt a chill run through him when he saw who it was.
“Larril,” Rellin whispered. Only a few minutes had passed since he’d given his order. The runner wouldn’t have even made it to Larril’s house by now. “Let him through.”
The Shoresmen stepped aside to let Larril through. He dusted off the lap of his sleeveless red tunic as if he had crawled across the dusty streets to get here. He looked thinner than usual, though Tharadis was always surprised at how thin the man was on the rare occasions they’d actually met. There were shadows under Larril’s eyes as if he hadn’t slept for days. Larril didn’t even glance at Rellin, but he cast a long, searching gaze at Tharadis before he wordlessly stepped forward to examine the wall, completely ignoring the dead birds scattered in the dust.
Tharadis frowned. The wall? What was so special about it? He’d only given it a cursory glance before; his attention had been fixed on the birds.
As Warden, Tharadis was no stranger to the sight of blood. But seeing so much of it sprayed across the wall like this churned his stomach. It was starting to dry, leaving a dark brown crust along the edges. Yet he saw nothing there to draw the Patterner’s interest.
Larril, however, squinted as his inspection intensified. “I came as I soon as I found out.”
“Found out what?” Tharadis asked.
Larril abruptly turned and shooed Rellin out of the way as if he were a cat that was underfoot. Larril then stepped aside and gestured for Tharadis to stand where the Patterner had just been. “See for yourself.”
Tharadis looked to Rellin, who merely shrugged helplessly. Another moment passed before Tharadis moved to the spot indicated.
He turned back to the wall.
The scene hadn’t changed at all—the blood was exactly where it had been before. But now, from this angle, Tharadis could almost see a design forming. It looked like … words. He blinked and briefly glanced away, but when he returned his gaze to the blood, the words were still there.
“You can read it, can’t you?” Larril whispered, stepping close. “What does it say?”
Almost as if his lips moved of their own will, Tharadis spoke. “‘To the land of the dead, one must go. To find what was lost. Blue stands against Green.’” Tharadis shook his head. The hazy feeling left almost as quickly as it came. He noticed Rellin frowning at him as if Tharadis were more worrying than the blood on the wall.
“Can you read that?” Tharadis asked him.
Rellin’s frown deepened. “Read what?”
Tharadis spun to Larril, who was eyeing him like a snake eyes a hawk. “Can you see it?”
Larril shook his head, keeping his voice pitched low so only Tharadis could hear him. “I knew it was there. But I didn’t know who it was keyed to.” He hesitated. “I had my suspicions, however.”
Keyed to? “Larril, what’s going on? What is this?”
“It’s a prophecy. And it was meant specifically for you.”
Tharadis felt his skin prickle. “You’re joking.”
But there was no hint of a joke in Larril’s shadowed eyes. The Patterner shook his head. “I’m afraid this,” h
e said, gesturing at the birds, “will have no explanation that you or I will accept, other than it was a message meant for you.”
The message. Tharadis had been so focused on the existence of the prophecy that he hadn’t given any thought to its meaning.
To the land of the dead.
What could it possibly mean? A land where people died? That could be anywhere. A graveyard? The site of a battle? There weren’t too many of either of those south of Andrin’s Wall. No, that made no sense. And what about the rest of it?
Tharadis sighed, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. He wouldn’t figure out the meaning standing here in this alley—if he could even trust such a prophecy. Why would such a thing be meant for him? Questions piled upon questions with no answer in sight. And even though he could feel Larril’s heavy, expectant gaze on him, he couldn’t bring himself to ask the Patterner any of those questions.
“Warden, sir,” Rellin said. “I’ll see that this gets cleaned up if you want to head over to the plaza now.”
Tharadis nodded. “Good idea.” Rellin was right; he had other matters to attend to—matters that were actually in his capacity to deal with. He would deal with the armed stranger first and deal with the woman in the carriage after. “Are you sure you don’t want to be Warden?”
Rellin scratched his stubble again, feigning a look of deep thought, though Tharadis could see the sparkle of a smile touching his eyes. “Tempting,” he said with a sideward glance, “though I’d rather keep my sanity.”
Tharadis snorted. “At least one of us should.” He nodded to the Shoresmen to step aside and let him through. Before he could leave, Larril seized him by the arm.
“Tharadis.” The Patterner’s eyes were hard. “I know you think this message wasn’t meant for you. But I assure you, it wasn’t meant for anyone but you.”
Tharadis didn’t want to make any promises. “I’ll give it some thought,” he said. Larril seemed to understand this was all he would get and let go of his arm. As Tharadis turned to go, he could feel that vague sensation of having forgotten something creep up on him again, and he knew that this prophecy, or whatever it was, wasn’t through with him yet.
Chapter 2: The Lone Knight
Dransig sat under the blazing Naruvian sun in the middle of the city’s main plaza, but it wasn’t merely the heat that made him want to flee this place. From where he was forced to wait at the fountain’s edge, he couldn’t see much through the throngs of people wending their way through the plaza. That didn’t stop his eyes from casting about, searching as many faces as possible. None were faces he recognized, but that only made him more anxious. Sweat ran down his forehead, stinging his eyes and dampening his beard, and again he wondered how in the name of the apoth he ended up in this heat-scourged city.
White plastered buildings of different sizes, roofed with blue tiles, were packed together as far as the eye could see. The plateau upon which Naruvieth sat was not flat, and many clusters of buildings were on small rises with flights of stone stairs connecting them, making the whole of the city feel huddled together. The resulting shade did make the unnatural, scorching heat a bit more bearable. The fountain where Dransig now sat, however, was over a hundred paces from the three- and four-story buildings at the west end of the plaza. He was as far away from shade as possible.
Dransig felt he was being cooked alive in his mail shirt, the quilted gambeson underneath, and the heavy woolen tabard on top. He eyed the belted linen tunics and sandals that the Naruvians wore with growing envy. It was just so hot here. He had heard the Patterners' explanations for it before—how the Rift, the magical barrier separating Naruvieth from the rest of the Sutherlands, interfered with this land's natural climate. But crossing the Rift over the Runeway had been like crossing a bridge to another world entirely. The change from the damp, temperate weather of the Accord to the desert-like weather of Naruvieth had been shockingly abrupt.
And it hadn't gotten any better in the half day since he had arrived. Under very different circumstances, Dransig would have been half-tempted to kick off his boots, roll up the hems of his trousers, and dip his feet in the fountain's pool behind him, but he would have to content himself with the spray rising up from it. He couldn't even remove his leather gloves, though his hands were soaked in sweat. Baring any of the skin below his collarbones would raise questions he was not prepared to answer.
Besides, he couldn’t afford to relax. Not now.
Naruvieth was barely a mid-sized city compared to the cities of the Accord, yet there was more bustle here, in Naruvieth's plaza, than Dransig had seen in the wealthiest market streets of Garoshmir. Deals were struck with laughter and pats on the shoulder, teams of mules pulled carts loaded with lumber, and packs of shrieking barefoot children chased each other through the throngs of people going about their business. Everyone here moved with purpose, even if that purpose, as in the case of the children, was simply enjoying the moment. They seemed to know what they were about and were pursuing it with fierce determination.
Which only made his situation, being forced to sit here and wait, all the more unbearable.
None of these people was being hunted. He was.
Dransig turned to the nearest of the four soldiers standing guard nearby. “How much longer until I meet this Warden of yours?” He didn’t bother to mask his impatience.
The question earned him a long, flat glance but no response. One of the other soldiers had Dransig’s weapons: a steel-capped wooden staff and a short arming sword. If these Naruvians had an inkling of the history of the Accord, they would know what these weapons signified. Only Dransig's order of knights carried such weapons, and there were plenty of towns in the Accord—ruled by superstition, of course—that would lock Dransig up merely for carrying them. A few might even execute him for the monster they suspected him to be.
And would they be wrong? he wondered, not for the first time.
Dransig wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. The absence of his weapons didn't concern him. Even without them, the four men were no match for him. Dransig was likely older than any of their fathers, his close-cropped hair and trim beard more gray than not, but that would work to his advantage. They would doubtless see an unarmed old man and underestimate him. And they would regret it.
He hoped it didn't come to that. He hoped they let him go. Dransig had lost his pursuers in this city, but it wouldn't take them long to catch up. They didn't need to see him to know roughly where he was.
They could feel his presence, just as he felt theirs.
He had never even wanted to come to this apoth-damned city. He hadn’t wanted to cross the Rift, or even go south. His destination had been north, to Garoshmir, yet a number of chance events conspired to force him down here to Naruvieth, as far south as a person could go before being run into the sea.
Dransig snorted. Chance events rarely conspired. No, there was more than just chance at work here. His path here felt guided. This whole situation reeked of Patterning. Though if the result of the World Pattern—what uneducated men sometimes called fate—or direct interference from a Patterner, Dransig had no idea.
The heat only exacerbated his anxiety. How much longer could he afford to wait here, while the other Naruvian soldiers fetched their so-called Warden to come meet him? They had said they were treating him as they would any dignitary from the Accord, but he knew that although he was an old man, he was armed and a stranger. They didn't trust him and they weren't going to let him go until their leader got a good look at him.
A large bell in a tower at the corner of the square tolled, marking the hour. Dransig began fidgeting, idly grinding the loose bits of stone under his boot and wondering if he could take all four of them down without hurting them too much, when he noticed a change in the crowd. There was something in the way their gazes shifted, in how they seemed to stumble just the tiniest bit. The strange effect, so subtle that Dransig wondered if he was really seeing it, seemed to ripple through the crow
d. Someone even dropped a clay pot, shattering it and spilling wine over her sandaled feet, eliciting curses from a couple of passersby. More than a few heads turned towards the east end of the plaza, towards the source of the mysterious disturbance. Dransig's own attention was drawn that way, so strongly that it seemed against his will.
It didn't take long to find the source of the commotion.
A man, walking toward him. Dransig knew, almost instinctively, that this was the Warden.
He was not old, certainly not by Dransig’s standards. He couldn’t have been a day over thirty and was likely younger. How could someone so young become the effective ruler of what was, until recently, a sovereign nation?
Like the rest of the Naruvians, he wore a long, cream-colored tunic, but his had sleeves coming to his elbows, hemmed by fine, deep blue embroidery, stylized as crashing waves. Over this he wore a shaped leather cuirass riveted with metal scales.
A narrow strip of pale green leather affixed with a small gold ring in the center circled his head and kept his slightly long, straight, brown hair out of his face. Within the ring was a small ceramic disk which, too, was painted with crashing waves. As far as Dransig could tell, this mark of office was the only such mark he wore. At his right hip hung a sword in a light blue lacquered sheath.
Shoreseeker.
Dransig had heard of the sword, of course—everyone in the Sutherlands had. Rumor had it that Shoreseeker’s blade was as blue as the sky and utterly indestructible. Blue was strange enough, but indestructible? Dransig found that hard to believe. There weren’t many Crafters alive these days—if there were even any at all. And none of them had created anything even close to indestructible.
Dransig picked up his steel conical helm from where it sat next to him and tucked it under his arm. Slowly, so as not to rile the four guards watching him.
When the Warden and his small retinue of soldiers stopped a few paces ahead, Dransig bowed his head. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance—” What sort of title to use in this situation? “—eh, Lord Warden. My name is Dransig.”
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