Approaching the doorway, the glow from his staff flickered, and he prepared himself to make the acquaintance of the Shield's spirits once again.
With each step into the west tower, Thaena's dread grew stronger. The walls closed in as the group made their way, and she had to focus on each breath, each step, always careful to hide her discomfort.
They found wychlaren wards at regular intervals, covered over with more of the Nar glyphs, these written not in ash and oil, but blood. The Creel seemed to be systematically destroying the very protections that made Shandaular and the Shield even remotely safe for mortals. She could not imagine the madness that would send such an invitation to the dead.
Duras stayed close, his concern for her obvious in his stance and bearing. He stared at the walls as if teeth-filled mouths might appear on them at any moment. There was no time to explain to him what she had been made to feel, what she had imagined. Nor did she think she could, even if the rest of the fang were not so near and the walls not so conducive to carrying even the slightest sound. Keeping what she had experienced a secret seemed more and more pointless as they climbed. Everyone could sense something wrong. She heard whispers of smordanya-a place that existed as a pathway or gate between the world of the living and the dead.
It is an accurate description, she thought.
Louder voices echoed from above, and she was ushered through the group, Duras and Anilya close behind. They had reached a large semi-circular landing with tall windows. Wind whipped at their long braids, and snow piled in small drifts on the floor. Half-buried in the snow were two more Rashemi bodies, frozen like those at the gates. No one approached, and the lead warriors looked to Thaena for instructions.
"Signs of movement?" she asked while studying the corpses.
The warriors shook their heads.
"We must wait," Duras said close to her ear. "If they have been defiled, we are honor bound to destroy them, give them peace. If not…"
"Then it is a desecration," Thaena finished.
"Perhaps," Anilya said, "but why take any chances either way:
"Perhaps you did not hear my mention of honor," Duras said angrily.
"Or perhaps I did. Honor may leave them in peace, but peace by its very nature is temporary," Anilya said. "We've already left plenty of bodies in our wake that could be used against us."
Thaena strode forward, ending the argument before it could continue. Approaching the bodies she held out her hands, feeling for the cold aura of the bleakborn reaching out for her warmth. The durthans words echoed in her mind as she neared the dead warriors. She wondered why those in the entrance hall had not been raised in such a manner. A chill in her fingertips interrupted the thought. It began to travel up her arms, and she backed away as the first of the two leaned forward from the wall, ice cracking as its frozen braid split, stuck to the stone.
Duras pulled her behind him, clapped two warriors of the fang on the shoulders, and raised his sword.
"As one," he said and made a downward stabbing motion with his weapon, waving the others toward the left while he angled toward the right. "Now!"
Before the bleakborn could gain their feet, Rashemi steel pinned them to the wall. Duras held one alone. The other was pinned at the shoulders. Both grew stronger from the attack, feeding on the warriors' body heat. Duras looked to Thaena as frost crawled up his blade.
Anilya acted quickly. Grabbing a torch from one of the Rashemi scouts she tossed it into the lap of the bleakborn on the left. The two warriors holding the undead stared at the durthan as if she'd gone mad. Even before the torch landed she was whispering a spell, her hands tracing the guttering flames in intricate movements. The undead grew flush and more lifelike, trying to reach for the blades in his shoulder.
Thaena followed Anilya's lead. The torch's flame changed from bright yellow and scarlet to shades of white and blue. The bleakborn groaned and thrashed as the heat became cold.
The ethran scooped a handful of snow in her palm and tossed it across the undead. Every place the snow fell it sparkled and spread, becoming a second skin of ice and frost. The bleak-borns' movements slowed, and the two women stepped aside. Thaena waved more of the fang onto the landing.
"Destroy them now," she commanded. "Quickly!"
They rushed in, hacking at the frozen bodies, dismembering them into piles of icy parts. Shivering, Duras freed his sword and fell back.
Thaena placed a hand on his shoulder as they waited for the fang's work to be done. She winced as the once recognizable bodies disappeared in a flurry of flashing steel and cursing oaths. As Duras's breathing became more measured she caught his eye.
"Are you well?" she said.
Taking a last cleansing breath, he nodded.
"I thought you liked the cold," she added playfully, trying to hide her greater concerns for a moment.
"As ever, my lady." He smiled, then added, "But death remains a cold season I have no wish to experience. At least not in this place, gods willing."
Thaena did not reply, didn't have to. She had no idea why the wychlaren had claimed such an outpost in the first place. Its position along the Lake Ashane notwithstanding, Thaena could imagine many spots better suited to the defense of Rashemen than a cursed city and the citadel that had failed in its defense. With all its dangers, she felt there must be something more to the Shield, a secret she was not privy to as an ethran. Secrets were common among the sisterhood, but the price paid to keep this one seemed far too high. She hoped the mystery was worth the sacrifice. Knowing her sisters, it probably was.
Anilya walked by them to stand at the base of the next flight of stairs, looking impatiently between them and the frozen bits that had once been living men. As distasteful as Anilya's presence was to her, Thaena agreed with the durthans sense of haste.
Taking her hand from Duras's shoulder, Thaena took the silent cue. The procession filed past the scene, their moods at once strengthened by the scent of fresh cold wind and darkened by the ruined bodies of their fellow Rashemi. Anilya's sellswords gave both bodies barely a second glance, keeping weapons ready and cloaks pulled tight.
As Thaena rejoined the marching order, it suddenly struck her to wonder how much the sellswords were actually being paid to take on such a mission… and to what end.
Chapter Eleven
The storm howled through tall windows at the tower's top, and a high ceiling arched to a conical dome overhead. The rang took up positions at the two visible exits: one to the west, the wall beyond invisible through the blizzard, the other out onto the bridge that connected with the Shield's larger central tower. It wasn't long before even the stoic warriors of the Ice Wolf pulled furred cloaks tight against the bitter cold.
Duras and Syrolf patrolled the area, looking for signs of recent activity by the Creel. Thaena looked to the west, trying to make out the northwest tower, but quickly gave up. Anilya approached, also staring hard toward where their quarry might be encamped.
"The blizzard will cover their tracks," Thaena said, loud enough to be heard over the wind.
"True," the durthan replied, "and the Creel are as accustomed to the season as we are."
"Why are they here? Why this place?" Thaena eyed the durthan, studying her ornate mask and posture, looking for any sign of deception. Though the masks hid their faces, she had grown accustomed to reading body language while learning with the wychlaren. Signs like fidgeting hands or shifting feet could reveal much, even when the face was hidden and the eyes unreadable.
"Who can know?" Anilya answered. "I suspect they are pawns for the power that I followed here. Though for all we know, this leader is Creel as well. A powerful shaman or wizard."
The tone of her voice was too flat, too conversational in Thaena's ears.
"You don't believe that, do you?" she asked.
Anilya hesitated before answering, as if gauging her own thoughts on the subject, but Thaena suspected she could also be deciding how to keep hidden something she already knew.
; "No, I don't," the durthan finally said. "The Creel are known to be dangerous, rumored to be ambitious, but are rarely considered a real threat. The power that I sensed was a threat."
Clever answer, Thaena thought. Informative and still evasive.
There was conviction in the durthans voice, but Thaena wondered at the depths of that conviction. Many among the wychlaren were quite adept at controlling what honesties their bodies lent to their voices. Thaena imagined the power-hungry durthan were even greater masters of their own secrets.
"You realize," Thaena said, "when this is over, you will be the threat once again."
Anilya's head lowered and tilted away from the ethran. Thaena could imagine the condescending smile behind the mask.
"The only true threat to Rashemen," Anilya began, raising her head to meet Thaena's stare, "is having the power to destroy its enemies and not using it."
The ethran narrowed her eyes and returned her attention to the winter storm. The answer was essentially a summation of the durthan sisterhood's philosophy, but it seemed far too pointedly said to be a mere statement of opposition. Alarmed by the tone in Anilya's voice, Thaena glanced at her warriors, noting the size of the fang against the durthans sellswords. The groups were evenly numbered, but not so evenly matched.
The berserkers had shown themselves to be much more vicious in battle. Returning her stare to the western wall, she wondered what Anilya could be planning-or if she was truly planning anything at all.
"Light!" Syrolf s voice called from the bridge to the central tower.
Thaena turned and rushed to Duras's side, following his gaze to Syrolf on the bridge. Mist swirled across the span and snow flew sideways in the whipping wind, obscuring the runescarred warrior. He stood pointing toward the tower with his drawn sword.
The central tower itself was little more than a gray silhouette in the distance. But briefly, between gusts of snow and mist, Thaena saw a small flickering illumination directly across the bridge.
"It's them," she said, feeling her own thirst for vengeance rise to the surface as if all the dead from downstairs stood with Syrolf, pointing and crying out for justice.
"Or it's a trap," Anilya said, approaching from behind, then added as she looked to Duras, "I thought the central tower was too damaged."
"The lower floors, from what I could judge, yes," Duras replied, "but the upper floors could very well be strong still."
Thaena considered this a moment, noticing the durthans sudden cold stare despite her earlier conviction.
Perhaps it is a trap, she thought, or something Anilya does not want us to find-or both.
"We will treat it as a trap then," Thaena said, deciding upon a course of action. "Anilya and I shall lead. Our magic can give us a degree of protection and destroy the Creel's element of surprise. Agreed?"
Anilya glanced once to the western wall exit, the look speaking volumes to Thaena, though it answered few direct questions. The durthan then nodded and joined Thaena at the edge of the bridge.
The fang formed up behind them, the sellswords alongside. The group began a careful march toward Syrolf who smiled grimly and stood aside to take his place behind the ethran. The cold wind sweeping across the bridge bit fiercely, a wintry beast of icy teeth and claws of snow.
Making ready for whatever lay ahead, spells ordered themselves among Thaena's thoughts. Though far from Rashemen, her magic was still formidable.
An arched doorway appeared through the snow, a blot of darkness within which the weak light of a flame burned. The bridge ended upon a circular landing, a large chamber visible through the open arch. Warriors formed up on either side of the door-the steaming breaths and fierce visages of the Rashemi on one side, the calm assuredness of professional sellswords on the other.
Slowly, she and the durthan entered the tower, forearms crossed in front of them, palms down in a spellcaster's stance. A few steps in they both stopped, scouting every inch of the chamber. The wychlaren had not yet breached the central tower. Tattered threads of tapestries hung from rusted hooks. Pieces of furniture lay crumbled to splinters and dust, leaving only corroded bits of metal intact. The windows here were high above, numerous and smaller than in the previous tower. The torch that had drawn them burned in an old wall sconce and illuminated the only other exit from the room-yet another darkened doorway.
Thaena breathed out in frustration.
"There is nothing here," she whispered, but kept her stance all the same.
"Someone lit that torch," Anilya said. "Perhaps your vremyonni friend?"
Thaena did not answer, merely continued through the room toward the door. Anilya kept pace, and Duras led the others inside.
Beyond the door a dark hallway extended through the tower's center. Thaena suppressed a shudder, her imagination creating shapes moving through the shadows. She shook her head and blocked these out, sure enough that reality would craft far more convincing things for her to see in time. The passage widened, and she could make out a faint light in the distance.
The glow of more torches lit the chamber beyond the hall. Sweeping stairways curved along the walls from the balcony she stood upon, down into a once grand feast hall or meeting place. Bones lay scattered across the floor, representing enough bodies for her to envision the battle that must have once taken place here. Nothing moved. Shadows danced and climbed the walls and stairs in the light of torches across the way. Even the air smelled stale and lifeless.
At the other end of the room, matching stairways rose and wound toward a second balcony almost a full level higher. Thaena squinted into the pits of darkness at the edge of the torchlight. No other exit was visible. The opposite balcony was very near the ceiling, and swallowed in darkness. Duras stood behind her and pointed the fang toward both sides so that they could secure the stairways on either side of the lower balcony.
"I don't like this," he whispered.
Neither did she. The Nar were being subtler than she had expected. She was bothered by something, a scent or perhaps just instinct, but the air felt thick with magic. Duras joined Syrolf at the stairway, waiting for Thaena to make a decision on their next move.
A steady noise drew her back to the first chamber. She turned back into the central corridor. Edging closer she made out a labored breathing and recalled the noise she had heard in the entrance hall-the disembodied breath and the whispering of the Shield's shadowy spirits. Peering into the room from the darkness of the hallway, she watched in horror as a robed woman staggered into view from outside.
The woman was dressed in the furs and leathers of a Creel, her face a pale white, her eyes and lips shocking shades of blue.
Thaena held onto her spell. The Creel woman seemed ready to collapse at any moment.
Noise erupted behind her, and Anilya screamed. Thaena felt the Weave twitch as Anilya cast a spell. Sounds of battle echoed from the walls. Still watching the Creel, Thaena prepared a spell herself, heart thumping in her chest as the attack they had expected arrived. She whipped her head back, seeing only a chaos of moving forms and bright lights, then returned her attention to the strange newcomer.
Coughing and stumbling, the woman's eyes bulged as weak puffs of steam escaped her lips. She fixed her stare on the ethran, hatred in her eyes, but helplessness in her expression. The skin on her forehead split and burned, revealing a pale scar in the shape of a strange sigil. She fell to her knees in the center of the room and leaned back, screaming as white light burst from her mouth and eyes.
Thaena fell back in horror, her spell lost as the woman's body tore apart in a thunder of energy that shook the walls. A wave of frigid air and ice chased the concussive force of the blast, knocking the ethran onto her back. Dazed, the sound of cracking stone roused her and she crawled toward the ice slick that had formed close to the explosion. The woman was gone, the floor a crumbling ruin that dropped away into darkness. Dust and snow drifted in the open space between Thaena and the bridge that had brought them here-the bridge from which they were now
cut off.
Staring at that span of stone her eyes were drawn to a figure standing at its edge. His white hair flowed in the howling wind and his sunken eyes regarded her with a gaze that passed straight through her. Ivory skin matched the ancient armor encrusted with snow and ice. She was lost in his stare, a glare of purpose that sent chills through her body, numbing her senses. Before he turned away, Thaena noted the design on the man's breastplate-a leafless black tree on a circular red field, the standard of Dun-Tharos.
He disappeared into the snow and mist. "Thaena!"
Duras's voice broke the odd trance in which she found herself, her head aching and her ears whining from the blast. She pushed herself to her feet and leaned against the wall for a moment before rushing back to her guardian and the others.
Duras met her at the balcony, his large frame silhouetted against a wall of glowing ice. The torches on the other side of the chamber provided the glow. Anilya, shaking out her hands and flexing her fingers, had apparently provided the ice. Safe for the moment, Thaena took in the scene and considered their options.
"How many are there?" she asked, striding forward to glare at the ice wall that separated them from their attackers.
"Not many," Duras answered. "Some archers on the higher balcony. A few others along the opposite stairs."
"They have a wizard," Anilya said.
A heavy rattling sound reverberated through the chamber, shaking the floor and walls as a large shadow reared behind the ice. Long and sinuous, it slid over the ice wall like a lamprey seeking a soft patch of skin. The shadow receded, growing smaller for a moment before rushing toward them. It cracked against the ice wall, shaking the room again and creating weblike cracks around the point of impact.
"And that?" Thaena asked, wide-eyed.
"Bones," Syrolf answered as he approached from the stairway, his voice unusually calm-a sign that many might misconstrue as non-threatening, but to a berserker it was merely the first stage of the battle-lust. "Wizard summoned them just before the wall went up."
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