Path of Bones

by Steven Montano

  Nine

  He lives in the company of wolves.

  They make their home in a blighted grove of twisted trees and dim pools. The alpha takes a different bitch every night – unlike other wolves, they don’t mate for life.

  Little they do is normal.

  He fights to enter the pack. Only a young pup, he’s survived the harsh tests the betas have subjected him to, their grueling battles and challenges. They push him ahead in the worst weather, piss on him and bite him and mangle him until he’s at the edge of death, then abandon him and leave him to make it back on his own. Try as they might, they haven’t killed him yet.

  He runs with them and sleeps with them and eats with them even though he’s smaller than the others, different, at least for now. He has to prove himself, especially to the one who found him and brought him in.

  The world is icy blue, washed over with frozen water. The black moon hangs low in the pale sky, casting shadows instead of light. The pack is smaller than it had once been, as many of them have been killed by hunters, but those few who remain are strong.

  He smells a familiar presence among them. His hackles rise and he feels an urge to rip something, to tear into flesh. Only the rules of the pack which he so desperately seeks to join keep him from tearing out his old enemy’s throat.

  The remains of a dead child lie on the ground, a small feast. He’s only permitted to chew on the greasy remains, for the choice pieces are reserved for the older and more powerful members of the pack, the alphas and betas, not an omega like he. He’s so hungry he doesn’t care, and he devours what little he’s allowed with ravenous glee. The skin is sweet, like sugary pork, so soft it melts in his jaws. Eating the child has a sort of euphoric effect, for it fills him with a sense of peace and calm he hasn’t known in a long time.

  He has memories of pain. Blades and blood, screams and fire. Another child, dead by his hand, only that one he didn’t eat.

  He’s still hungry, and grows hungrier by the minute. He knows he will never be sated, but that doesn’t stop the yearning. He growls, demanding the other’s shares.

  They aren’t going to give up their meat. They greedily claw at the child’s corpse and tear it to ribbons. Blood sluices and freezes to the frozen earth. He smells it burning through the ice.

  He turns away, the remnants of his small meal dangling from between his teeth. He doesn’t need them. He’ll find his own food.

  He leaves the smell of the slaughter behind, the scent of his foe. He knows he’ll return, but not yet, not until he’s had his fill elsewhere.

  He returns to the cold and lifeless wastelands. The blue desert looks like perfect snow. There’s no sign of life that he can sense or smell, but the hunger drives him on. He’ll kill whatever he has to.

  Ten

  Azander Dane woke with a sense of dread. He wasn’t sure what he’d been dreaming about, but he was exhausted and afraid and felt like he hadn’t eaten in a week. He wanted to attribute it to the stress and fatigue from his harrowing experiences in the City of Scars, but something else was amiss. The cold fear and ravenous hunger he kept waking to wasn’t natural, and it worried him.

  Like I don’t have enough to worry about already.

  They were entering cursed territory. The Bonelands were hard on the body and mind, and if he wasn’t careful he and Kruje could wind up as two more victims to the dry and craggy wastes.

  The boat trip north out of Ebonmark had proved surprisingly uneventful. At first Dane had been concerned over Kruje’s injuries, but after the first night spent sleeping aboard their small sailing craft the giant had woke with no wounds at all. Dane had heard tales of the Voss’s incredible regenerative capabilities, but until Kruje’s numerous hurts all but vanished from his midnight flesh Dane had never known just how formidable those powers really were. Even then, Kruje still seemed afflicted by something. They’d sailed for nearly a week. The boat was ill-suited to house the Voss’s bulk, and Kruje spent most of the voyage asleep, squirming uncomfortably beneath a bulky tarp and shaking the ship every time he shifted his weight.

  It’s a wonder this thing hasn’t come apart right out from under us. Dane thought he’d laugh if that actually happened. Maybe.

  He’d never much cared for being on the water, even if learning to sail had been a part of his training. He hailed from the landlocked city of Ral Tanneth, and while a trip up the wide River Black was nothing like an open ocean voyage the unstable current and constant motion still made his stomach lurch, even after he’d had a week to get used to it. He’d taken the boat to shore a few times for food-gathering forays, and while game was scarce in the region and there were few peaceful villages in the area to trade with – which meant they’d settled for nuts and berries and foul-tasting Veilcrafted gruel – he was grateful for the opportunity to get his feet back on solid ground. He tried to make those trips in remote areas, on beaches in rocky coves or off sandy shores surrounded by trees or blade grass so Kruje, too, could stretch his legs, but for the most part the giant seemed content to stay hidden. Of course, even giants had to answer the call of nature, and Dane thought that the stench and volume Kruje produced when he went to the edge of the boat to relieve himself were the stuff of nightmares.

  Dane had to be careful to keep Kruje hidden from plain sight. Anyone aside from a Voss had good reason to hate a Voss, and he didn’t want to think about what might happen if pirates got their hands on him. Between worry over Ijanna and Kruje and his troubled sleep and bouts of seasickness, Dane was more exhausted than ever.

  I’ll be happy when we ’re finally done with this damn ship.

  In those rare times when Kruje was alert and awake he’d been surprisingly talkative, even if the language barrier was at times nigh impenetrable. The giant couldn’t speak Jlantrian, as a Voss’s mouth was literally incapable of producing the sounds required for human speech. Dane thought this also explained why he himself had so much trouble with what little Vossian he knew, but over the past week he’d made some decent progress with Kruje’s language, and while he still found the sentence structure difficult Kruje’s exceptional patience and Dane’s natural knack for learning had allowed him to pick up enough words for the two of them to almost carry out a simple conversation. It was better than nothing.

  Dane stared ahead. Kruje slept hidden beneath the tarp, and the steady wind carried them north. The mast shifted and creaked as the sails expanded in the hard breeze, and Dane had to man the rudder as a hard gust rocked the ship from side-to-side. The air in the Bonelands was foul and dead, especially on the river, and the stench reminded Dane of a slaughterhouse. The day wore long, and as the sun started to set the shadows grew thick and the river turned dark. Bits of refuse floated on the laggard surface, pieces of wrecked boats and old fishing nets, floating clumps of tin and an occasional dead fish. What few people they’d seen offshore were scavengers, refugees and outcasts from Gallador. Dane had spied a few warning markers – tapestries of bone and totems of skulls, black nets lined with blades and clusters of bodies left to rot in shallow waters – and he knew that he and Kruje were fortunate not to have run afoul of any pirates, but he wasn’t ready to start counting his lucky stars until they finally left the boat behind them for good.

  Where and how they’d finally be able to do that was the question. Dane didn’t exactly know where Ijanna was headed, and though he’d used cher’nag to track the thar’koon blades all he had was a vague sense that she was heading north. Ijanna was wanted by the Phage who controlled Kaldrak Iyres, so it was possible that if he could make contact with the cartel he might be able to learn something that would prove useful in his search. If not, and if he didn’t have any more luck with cher’nag, then he and Kruje could very well search the Bonelands for a decade and still never find her.

  No, we’re close, he thought. We’re close.

  He watched the water as the sun set. The river continued to narrow, and eventually it would empty into Thorn Lake, which sat right at the foot of the
City of Thieves. He’d been there before, and the thought of returning made him tired all over. Kaldrak Iyres was a thoroughly dank and corrupt place filled with noise and filth and flesh for sale. It would be useful to make a quick stop, if only to gather some supplies, but it would be difficult to do that with Kruje. The Voss were almost universally hated for their dark creations and their role in the Rift War – there was no way Kruje could go anywhere near the city, let alone inside it. If Dane was going to enter he’d have to do it alone.

  The sluggish River Black was amply named, for the farther north they traveled the more the waters looked like they’d been stained with charcoal. The bodies of thousands of Drage slain in Gallador’s destruction still lay beneath the sands of the river, staining the waters dark.

  Dane spied sails in the distance – not pirate vessels but cargo ships, likely loaded with contraband and slaves bound south for Ebonmark. He laughed. Whoever piloted those boats would find out soon enough there wasn’t much of a criminal market left in the City of Scars to purchase anything they had to offer, but once that news spread the smugglers would send envoys and caravans of goods overland to be delivered to Blackmoon, Raithe or the shores of the Moon Sea.

  Business keeps rolling, no matter what.

  Their vessel sliced through patches of dark ooze. It was impossible to see into the depths of the river, as the surface was congealed with muck and grime, but now and again bizarre fish or pale swimmers floated close to the ship, wraith-like aquatic forms with blank eyes. The air was hot and fetid and unpleasantly moist, filled with the stench of meat and thick with flies and mosquitoes. Dane’s skin felt like he’d been dipped in oil. Though dusk approached and the sky was full with curdled clouds the orange sun still shone down on the lands east and west of the river: cold red hills and tall shelves of rock, seas of black dust riddled with dead pines. The deeper they went into the Bonelands the less hospitable the terrain. The entire region had been raped by Vossian magic, and wasn’t likely to ever heal. Dane wondered how Kruje felt about seeing this place.

  Probably the same way I feel about seeing the Razortooth. The formidable range stood to the west, a grim bastion of jagged peaks capped with snow. Storms churned over the mountains, twisted clouds spreading like spilled ink. Goddess, it seems so long ago.

  But it had only been three years since Dane had last been in those mountains…when he and the other Dawn Knights had abandoned every last vestige of their humanity. Bloodspeakers were the enemy, the very embodiment of pure evil, or at least that was what they’d believed. It had only seemed fitting that the Dawn Knights – the elite of the White Dragon Army – would be trusted with the Empress’s secret mission to remove the scourge of those creatures from the face of Malzaria. Only the Dawn Knights were strong enough and loyal enough to carry out her orders; only they possessed the resolve to do what needed to be done.

  And only they would take the blame for those crimes.

  How could we have been so blind?

  Dull golden light saturated the poison air, piercing through the clouds at just the right angle so it struck Dane in the face and forced him to squint. For a moment he was reminded of the fires in the camps, and the painted black face.

  What am I doing?

  Thus far his plans had revolved around finding Ijanna and convincing her that he could help. He had to find some way to make amends for all the evils he’d done in those mountains, but the more he thought about his situation the more he realized how desperately in over his head he really was. Ijanna was obviously important – both of the major crime guilds were hunting her, not to mention the White Dragon Empire. He knew she was powerful, but something in the Iron Count’s story about her being valuable because of her unrestricted supply of Veil energy no longer rang true. There was something more to her, and even guessing at what that was unsettled him. The Black Guild and the Phage both dealt with the blackest aspects of magic, and if the Empire had assigned the Black Eagles to hunt Ijanna then her days might as well have been numbered.

  He’d battled Marros Slayne in the tunnels under Ebonmark, Slayne who should have been dead, who Dane was sure he’d seen die. An outsider to the Dawn Knight’s ranks, Slayne had felt no remorse for the slaughter they’d committed on their Empress’s behalf. Knowing the mercenary was still alive rattled Dane’s nerves, but he tried to focus his fear into hate.

  I owe you, Slayne. I owe you for all the lives we took.

  Kruje turned under the tarp, and his raucous snores filled the air. Dane was thankful there was nobody around to hear him. The cargo ships were still a good distance off, so Dane had plenty of time to steer their small vessel wide to avoid coming anywhere close to the crayers. The waters slowed as the sky darkened, and up ahead the river continued to narrow. If his bearings were correct they’d come upon the channel leading to Thorn Lake before nightfall.

  His guts twisted with worry. He must have been insane to be chasing the Dream Witch into the Bonelands, especially with so many powerful forces aligned against her. He had no idea what he was getting into, but now he wasn’t sure if he had any other choice.

  I can’t go on like I have been. I’m lost. Everything I used to be died in those mountains.

  Memories of that place haunted him. He’d done everything he could to block out the months he’d spent acting as one of Empress Azaean’s butchers, but images flashed through his mind, so real and visceral it sometimes felt like he was still there. A sense of loathing rose like bile in his throat. Tears came to his eyes as he remembered sitting in his home as a little boy, reading a book in the corner or running around ankle-deep waters on the shores of the Grey Sea, only to have those pleasant memories replaced with sharp and horrifying images: hacking a man’s stomach open, locking a young girl in a heated cage, sealing Bloodspeakers robbed of their powers into iron boxes to bake under the sun. He felt blood on his hands. The stench of burning flesh hung in his nostrils and the echo of dying screams rang in his ears.

  All in the name of Empire. All to keep Azaean and her people safe.

  They’d killed their humanity for her, stripped themselves of everything that had made them what they were, and in return for their devotion they were exiled. Hundreds of Bloodspeakers were executed, and all responsibility for those crimes had been laid at the Dawn Knight’s feet.

  Dane lived a haunted existence. He saw the black face, the circle of kneeling women, waiting, left only with the hope that they’d die quickly.

  He sat still, his hands shaking. He clenched his fists and tried to steady himself.

  Saving one woman isn’t going to change what happened, he told himself. Making good now won’t erase the things you’ve done.

  Still, he had to try. There wasn’t much left of his soul to save, but at least he could do something decent before he died.

  Eleven

  The corrupt city of Kaldrak Iyres slowly came into view, an enormous tangle of barbed and twisted sandstone towers. Dane thought the city looked like a vast stone crab lurking over the water. Jagged spires protruded from the walls like great spears. Narrow walkways and parapets lit by pyres and torches cast orange light onto Thorn Lake’s murky waters, and smoke and flames danced into a night sky burdened with iron clouds.

  While carefully guarded gates on the north end allowed access to the trade roads, most of Kaldrak Iyres was positioned over the lake, held aloft by steel and stone planks which had been reinforced by Veilcraft to support the city’s weight. Numerous channels in the southern walls granted access to a complicated network of twisted waterways which led to dozens of docks hidden beneath the shell of the city.

  The creak of ships and the gale of the eastern winds were strong. Dane heard horns in the distance and smelled fish and burning metal. Smoke rolled across the water, and both the lake and the sky were black.

  Kaldrak Iyres was nearly twice the size of Ebonmark and with four times as many people, most of them bad. There was little law in the city save that dictated by the dire criminal organization called th
e Phage. Many of the people living in Kaldrak Iyres who weren’t criminals were either too poor to escape or too rich to know any better. Anything could be bought in that remote and dismal place, especially whores, weapons and slaves.

  Dane had weighed the options and decided he needed to enter the city. He’d heard rumor some time back that Ijanna had run afoul of some trouble in Kaldrak Iyres and made enemies of none other than Mez’zah Chorg, one of the leaders of the Phage. Even if Ijanna wasn’t there it was possible he could learn something useful about her and her enemies, and maybe he could figure out what she was doing in the Bonelands in the first place. Potential for useful information aside, he also needed to acquire some supplies: even though he could provide himself and Kruje with food they were ill-equipped for a trek into the Bonelands.

  Besides, who wants to eat that Veil-generated slop for another week?

  Part of him hoped they’d actually find Ijanna in the city, but he doubted that was going to happen. His repeated attempts at locating the thar’koon through use of cher’nag told him Ijanna had indeed passed near Kaldrak Iyres, but he couldn’t determine if she’d actually gone in or just carried on past it.

  You’re not going to make this easy, are you?

  Unfortunately there was nowhere safe to dock the ship along the river. They were still near the southern edge of Thorn Lake as the sun set, and the only light for miles were the fires across the bay. The shores were dark and riddled with stakes which served as mooring stations for Kaldrak Iyres’ war boats, slave galleys, monster pens and a few scattered farming and fishing communities. The darkness and smoke made it so little aside from the city could be seen clearly. The moon and stars seemed to have been sucked away, hidden by the veil of clouds.

  Kruje picked a good time to wake. The giant stirred beneath the stained tarps and sat up. He knew not to extend himself fully into a sitting position: he was twelve feet tall, and even sitting he still towered over Dane and would easily draw attention. Luckily his midnight-dark flesh camouflaged him in the darkness, and since the nearest ships were still in the distance Dane didn’t worry about them being spotted just yet, but the giant would have to go back into hiding well before they reached the tunnels.