The guiltiest of the parties, Laister Krous, crossed his thick arms and scoffed. “What possible purpose could any of the family have for murdering Windhar? Who is served by such foolish notions?”
Nachia Krous turned on her cousin with a smile on her face that would have made most enemies hesitate.
“Who indeed, Laister? The most solid connection we have to the brigands found with Windhar lead to Losla Foster.”
He was good. Laister Krous barely even twitched.
“Darsken Murdro.” Nachia gestured with her left hand to a dark-skinned man with a powerful build and long black hair that exploded into tails of differing lengths. He was dressed unremarkably, and carried a short staff. “Inquisitor Darsken Murdro is here to speak with each of you. You will answer his questions to his satisfaction and only after you have done so will you be allowed to leave this chamber.”
Once again the protests started. Not everyone raised their voices. A few looked toward the dark man with nervous expressions. One of the older women in the group leaned back in her seat and looked coldly toward Laister. Her smile rivaled that of the Empress. It was a promise of pain and suffering on an epic level.
When Nachia Krous continued her voice snapped. “You will do this thing! You will stay here. You will answer his questions! We will know, all of us, exactly what has happened to our kin. Should any of you attempt to leave before Inquisitor Murdro has allowed it, the guards in this room will see you punished.”
She moved toward the doors to her private chamber, which meant that she headed straight for the hidden access point above those doors, where Swech was currently waiting. Swech did not move. She did not fear discovery. She was well and truly hidden within walls that were several feet thick.
Her surprise when she saw the Inquisitor looking directly at her could not have been more complete. There was no mistaking it. He was not looking in her general direction. His eyes were on her.
The Inquisitor made a gesture to one of the guards and the man moved closer. Those dark eyes never left her. He spoke softly and the guard looked toward the chamber the Empress had entered.
Swech did not stay around to contemplate how she had been seen. She merely moved, as quickly and quietly as she could, fully accepting that her hiding spot had just been discovered.
The guards entered the chamber of the Empress at the same time Swech was dropping down behind one of the heavy curtains that surrounded the windows of the room.
The guard that grabbed at the curtain to move it aside managed to handle that task and to offer Swech her chance to strike at the same time. His body was exposed as the heavy fabric was pulled away and she drove a blade into his neck without hesitation.
He fell back, choking on his own blood, and Swech helped him along, sending the dying man stumbling across the room to knock aside a small table.
Nachia Krous saw her and her face dropped with shock. She had not expected to find anyone in the room. She should have been prepared – her predecessor had been assassinated after all – but she remained surprised enough to let Swech move past her at a dead run.
By the time the dying guard had collapsed and the Empress had let out a call of alarm, Swech was out of the room and moving down the hallway toward the next wing of the vast structure.
One unfortunate guard came out from a side door as the alarm was sounded. He stared at her and started to draw his short sword. She was already moving faster than he could draw the weapon, but she shifted position and then broke his neck with an elbow strike as she moved past.
Within ten minutes she had vacated the palace. There were other tasks she needed to attend to, and there was little time to dwell on the unexpected discovery. Still, she marked the Inquisitor in her memory as someone to be aware of.
TWELVE
The sun had set and the Imperial Highway was overflowing with the people who followed the Pilgrim.
He stood at the head of the massive entourage and nodded his head in satisfaction. The sky was already dark with perpetual clouds. The volcanic activity in the distance and the burning of Trecharch were enough to guarantee that the stars would soon be hidden behind a thick layer of clouds, but here, for the moment, the Great Star and a few others were still visible.
Sarmin and Lemblo stood on his left. Longrid and Powl on his right. There had been a time when all four of them had been soft. The walking had changed that. Their muscles had hardened as surely as their skin had grown dark with the sun’s treatment.
Sarmin smiled at him and he nodded back. His face was not designed for smiling and that was something they had come to understand about him.
“How much farther, do you think?” Powl looked his way as he spoke. Like so many of his followers the man seemed to believe that every word from his mouth came from the gods themselves. He had surrendered the notion that he could convince them otherwise. He spoke with experience, he spoke with the sure knowledge that they needed to reach Canhoon as quickly as possible, but he did not speak with the voice of the gods, not in this instance.
“We have several days’ hard walking ahead of us.”
“Will we make it to the city in time?”
The Pilgrim looked at Powl and frowned. “We must and so we will.”
Powl frowned, too. “There are some who say they cannot walk any further.”
“Then some will not make the journey. We must ensure that enough do.”
The Pilgrim grew tired of the doubt coming from his follower and looked away from him. He saw the expression on Powl’s face. The man wanted words to soothe him and comfort his doubts.
“Believe this, Powl. The gods wish us to succeed. They have given us all we need to prosper in this. We merely have to continue on the proper path. Ours is a sacred path and the way will be cleared of heavy obstacles as has been the case all along.”
It seemed enough for the man.
Later, after everyone had settled in for the night – as much as anyone could settle themselves comfortably on a road designed to be traveled by wagons and horses – the Pilgrim saw Sarmin staring at him in the darkness.
“What bothers you, Sarmin?”
“You know what we travel to. Does it concern you at all?” Her brow was knotted with tensions and doubt.
“I was born for this. I slept for a very long time waiting for this event. It was ordained. I am not bothered by what will happen, child. I look forward to it.”
“I am scared.” She looked away, her face still troubled.
“The weather has been kind to us. We have found the food we need and no one has come up lame, despite Powl’s worries. That is because the gods favor us in our mission. We do the will of the gods. We are the instruments of their desires. Do you understand this?”
She listened to his words and slowly the tension left her face. “You are kind to listen to my worries.”
“You follow me into the unknown, Sarmin. How can I do less than prepare you for what we know must happen?”
Sarmin closed her eyes and smiled and slowly drifted to sleep.
The Pilgrim did not join her; his mind was filled with the endless possibilities of what could go wrong and how to prevent disasters from stopping them.
The gods had need of the people who followed him. He would see this through. He had no choice in the matter.
His was a sacred mission.
* * *
Tarag Paedori looked upon the corpses of his enemies and nodded his satisfaction. The First Lancers had fought well and employed surprising strategies. The archers with them had done their jobs well and over a hundred of the Sa’ba Taalor were dead or maimed as a result. The dead were being taken care of. The injured were being tended to.
The small town that had been an outpost of the Fellein was now gone, crushed under the armies of the Sa’ba Taalor.
To the south and east he could see the smoke from Durhallem’s second home. The newly formed volcano roared and spit ashes and flame into the air. Almost directly east of where he and his forces
were gathering, Canhoon waited.
There was no rage in his heart. He had offered his anger to the Empress of the Fellein only because the message he had to convey was made clear to him by Truska-Pren. He needed only look to the skies to know that he did well in the eyes of his god. The clouds that gathered were a sign of his success.
Ehnole stood nearby, her eyes scanning the whole of the eastern horizon. She offered no opinions. She made no statements. She followed orders and even now supervised the removal of the dead.
The Daxar Taalor said to place the dead within a pit and leave them behind. This had already been done. The last of the dead – both Sa’ba Taalor and Fellein alike – rested together now. In death they were no longer enemies. They were merely meat.
At home, in the Taalor Valley, the bodies would have been treated differently. They’d have been offered to the gods by those who killed them. Here they were offered as one in the names of all the gods.
Tarag looked upon the dead and nodded.
“You have done well, Ehnole.”
She offered a formal bow and nothing else. She was a proper soldier and that was why she moved up the ranks of the King in Iron with ease. There were no decorations upon her to denote rank. None were needed.
“We offer the dead to the Daxar Taalor.” Tarag spoke clearly and as he spoke, all of the people who followed him stomped one foot in unison. At a distance of one hundred feet, those he had appointed earlier repeated his words and again, the Sa’ba Taalor responded by stomping the ground. The ground fairly shook, as it should when the gods demanded.
“We offer our lives to the Daxar Taalor!” Ehnole and all of the others within range of his voice repeated his words and again the ground shook with the feet of the Sa’ba Taalor.
Tarag Paedori raised his arms to the heavens and roared his words for all to hear. “We offer our enemies to the Daxar Taalor!”
As one they raised their arms above their heads. As one they stomped one foot into the ground. As one they repeated his words. Tarag Paedori’s blood surged and he looked at his armies. They ranged in age from ten years into their fifties and higher. They served the gods of the Seven Forges as he served the same deities. They obeyed his words but only because the gods demanded it. There was no ego in his words. There was only praise for the gods they had all been raised to serve until their dying days and beyond.
Even Kallir Lundt, the Fellein who now followed their ways, raised his voice and his arms to the gods of war.
“The enemies of our gods will fall before us!”
Oh, how they roared their approval then.
“It is time! Now is the time of the Daxar Taalor!” Without another word he walked forward, heading for his mount and the call to war. A hundred horns sounded their ululations, though they were surely unnecessary. A hundred more responded.
Tarag Paedori knew that the Fellein thought they were great warriors. They also thought that the Sa’ba Taalor were small in numbers. They were wrong. Fifty thousand warriors rode or walked behind Tarag Paedori at that moment and they were but a portion of a much greater army.
“We offer the dead to the Daxar Taalor!” He gestured to the vast pit they had spent over a day digging and then filling with corpses. He marched on, and his forces followed.
And behind them, left to fester in their shallow grave, the dead began to move.
All must answer to the gods of war.
* * *
Cullen walked through the ruin of Trecharch and into the lands beyond, where trees did not rise toward the clouds and once upon a time, the open spaces would have terrified her. The road she followed was well traveled and the proof of that could be found in what had been left behind.
Many of the escapees from the Sa’ba Taalor had tried to take their possessions with them and a good number discarded those goods when the grayskins came after them. It was a simple lesson to learn: a favored vase is not worth dying for at the hands of a merciless enemy. The road and the areas around it were littered with the items thrown aside or dropped when the enemy came through on a killing rampage. There were no bodies, though there were many areas where it was obvious people had died. Blood painted the dry soil and the places where the dead had fallen still showed signs of the weight of those bodies.
“Where are you going now, Cullen?”
Deltrea continued her tirade of questions and complaints. Sometimes Cullen did not know if she should be grateful or if she should kill herself just to make the noise stop. Still, if Deltrea talked she did not have to think so much, and thinking hurt.
“I’m following the road. I have to get to Canhoon. I have to let them know that Trecharch is dead.”
“I should think they already know. They can probably see the smoke.” Deltrea’s voice sounded hurt. To be fair, she had died somewhere back there. She had every reason to feel hurt.
“That doesn’t matter. They need me. I have something for them.” Somewhere within her she felt it stir, the life she had snatched from the dead Mother-Vine. She needed to see it safely to the City of Wonders. There was a man there who needed to know about it. She could not see a face, she did not know a name, but she could sense him. He needed to know. It was of the utmost urgency.
The road ahead of her was different. There were people up there. Not a lot, but enough to make her aware of more than the life that burned inside of her.
For a moment she feared it was the grayskins, but no. These were people with flesh that resembled life instead of decay. They were active, and they were moving and speaking the same language that she did.
There were more than ten, but she couldn’t have given an exact number. They moved along the road and gathered the salvage that others had left for them to find.
They were destitute, the lot of them. They picked at anything that might have value and carefully placed their treasures in the wagon they brought with them, dragged by two of the saddest-looking horses she had ever seen. She had not seen many, true, but these were old and withered and swaybacked. Cullen wondered if they could have supported the weight of even a small man on a saddle without collapsing. She had her doubts.
Most of them saw her, decided she was harmless and nodded before moving on, but one of the men kept staring, his eyes focused on her arm with an unsettling intensity. It only took her a moment to understand he wasn't looking at her, but at the bow she carried.
She shook her head to warn him away and he frowned, likely trying to decide if it was worth the trouble to try to take from her.
Just to make sure he stayed dissuaded, she notched an arrow and tapped her finger along the fletching to make sure he got the point. Eventually he looked away, muttering under his breath. Cullen decided to keep an ear on the lot of them as she walked past. If he chose to try his luck she’d kill him for his troubles. They were little better than grave robbers in her estimation. Not that she and her stolen bow had any right to judge.
The skies were darker here. The winds stank of ash and worse. There was an aroma of death that came from the south and west, the direction of Jorhuan. She had never been to the town before and knew that she would not be going there now. The stench alone would have deterred her, but that roiling heat in her guts, the Mother-Vine’s mark inside of her, told her that it would be a bad choice and she chose to listen to it.
There were others on the road, but as a whole they were broken remnants. There were no soldiers here, only a scattering of scavengers. Of course, some scavengers still had teeth.
The five men who came at her were not overly large, nor were they dressed with any particular adornments that made them threatening. It was the way they walked, the way they looked around that let her know.
One of them nodded an acknowledgment of her. The others did not. All of them moved with too much bounce in their step and she could clearly see the way their hands twitched. It wasn't nerves. They were signaling each other. She didn’t know what the signals meant, but she doubted they were of benefit to her situation.
; Deltrea agreed. “They mean you harm. I can smell it on them.”
Cullen didn’t answer. Instead she took the arrow she had already notched and fired it into the first of the men. Her aim was nearly perfect and he staggered back with a new hole punched clean through his throat.
The next arrow was out, drawn and airborne before the scavengers had a chance to react. The first man was painting the road with his blood, his hands trying to staunch the flow and failing. A second let out a long, warbling scream, the arrow sticking out of the side of his face. She could see that the arrowhead was embedded deep into bone. He would live, but there’d be no fight in him.
Two of the others froze, the third and the last of them took a few strides in her direction and finally stopped when she aimed at him and shook her head. “I lost to the grays. Doesn’t mean I’m not trained. Gather yours and back away, or you’ll all die right at this spot.”
The one she’d skewered in the face was still screaming. She couldn’t blame him. He was trying to speak but his words were lost in the gasping, wailing bellows that came from him. He could have been mistaken for a Pra-Moresh.
The cockiness they’d had before was gone. The brave one, the one that had got closer, was still considering his options, but she could see the other two had already grown wiser from the encounter.
“Keep looking at me, and I’ll split your eye open. You doubt me, you take one more step this way and test my skills.”
For several seconds she thought she might have to carry through but he finally backed down, looking at his fallen friends and letting common sense prevail. He had no weapons. She had a bow and enough arrows to whittle him down to half his size.
She waited several minutes for them to gather their wounded and dying and leave before she continued on.
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