The Archbishop's Amulet (The Windhaven Chronicles Book 2)

by Watson Davis

  Rucker huffed past me first, chunks of snow sticking to his face, swinging his whole body, starting with his arms, to lift his snowshoes, to push himself forward. Aissal followed him, her head down, staring at the snow, eyes glazing, mouth wide open, gasping for breath.

  “We’re close,” I said, hoping to give them some hope, hoping they didn’t discern the lie in my voice.

  A grunt, a cry of pain, I turned, my sling whirring in the air, afraid I’d already missed the attack of the icefangs on our trail, but Rucker had run into the top of a tree jutting up from the snow, invisible, white on white. He lay sprawled on the ground, motionless except for the rapid rising and falling of his chest.

  “Wait.” I raised my empty hand in warning, my sling spinning, but Aissal, too exhausted to watch where she was going, her attention focused inward, plowed into Rucker, tripping over him, pitching forward into the branches of the tree, arms flailing, knocking tree limbs aside, snow flying, tumbling to the ground.

  Beyond her, something flickered in the shadows beneath the limbs of a tree, two pairs of eyes watching in silence. I let my sling-stone fly to be rewarded with a thud. The eyes disappeared with a high-pitched whine.

  I dropped another stone into my sling and jumped to Aissal’s side, interposing myself between the two of them and the icefangs. My eyes scoured the forest, now so deadly silent, for a hint of what I knew was there. Without sparing a glance, I said, “You guys have to get up.”

  “I can’t.” Rucker groaned and grunted with strain. He sobbed, “I just can’t.”

  I spun around, looking behind us, feeling the icefangs’ eyes on me, but caught only a hint of movement through the trees, a white, sinuous body. I whispered a “thank you” to the gods of the Onei, grateful the icefangs weren’t so hungry or so numerous to take us on in a headlong rush, but instead wanting to wear us down. Of course, most of us flopping about in the snow like wounded reindeer would bolster their courage. “I need you two on your feet.”

  Aissal rolled to her side, her legs fluttering about, her snowshoes clattering together, her legs twisting up in ways I could not have imagined. She shook her head, panting, and collapsed back on the snow. “I can’t get up, either.”

  I bit back a curse, a scream of frustration and rage welling up from the deepest core of me. I should have left them, two sacrifices, offerings to the brutal gods of the forests and the snow. The wastes of the Onei are unforgiving and everyone except the empress dies someday. When did I forget the lessons of my upbringing?

  But forget those lessons I did. Stilling my sling and stuffing it back into my belt, I tossed Rucker over my left shoulder and wrapped my strong arm around Aissal’s waist, pulling her up to her feet, setting her arm around my neck.

  Hoisting them, I shambled through the snow as fast as I could, the clouds above us roiling, focusing on the route through the trees to the cave I’d scouted earlier in the day, before this storm had risen in the west. The yip-yip of the icefangs started up with a couple behind me, growing more animated, almost joyous, adding a few to my right, to my left, ahead of me, trying to herd me to where they could take us all as a tasty little meal for their pack.

  Lightning crashed, lighting up the forest in a stark blue light, striking a tree to my right. The fluffy snow became shards of ice, stinging the exposed skin on my face and hands.

  I didn’t follow the route the icefangs wanted. They yelped, growing more courageous in their rage, bounding out of the trees, swinging from the branches, growling, baring their long, needle-like fangs, slinking away, their white coats and long, lean bodies disappearing into the forest.

  I growled back at them, yelled at them, my voice drowned by the roar of the wind, my legs burning with the strain, Aissal’s squirming, Rucker’s kicking and crying not helping. I shouted, “Watch behind us,” hoping Rucker or Aissal could hear and would be lucid enough to at least perform that task.

  A whimper and a squeal from before me, right on my path to the cave, I hurried to take advantage of whatever had happened, my strength waning, dodging and ducking between the branches, swinging Rucker and Aissal. Before me, the snow broke on black rocks, a trail of blood leading off into the the trees.

  So close, I summoned strength from somewhere within myself, and pushed forward, lunging through the mouth of the cave, stumbling to my knees on the stone, tossing Aissal and Rucker aside. Frantic to protect us now that we’d arrived, I forced myself up, popping back up to my feet, kicking off my snowshoes, whipping out my sling and my axe, wheeling around, expecting to see a whole pack of icefangs, too many for me to take on even at my strongest, my addled mind searching for some spell to use, some spell I still had strength enough to cast, but finding nothing.

  “Drop your weapons, boy,” a voice behind me said in Onei. Two men crept out of the forest, bows in their hands, bowstrings drawn, arrows knocked, aimed at me, at my heart.

  I stopped moving, letting the swinging of the sling slow and come to a stop, stretching my arms out wide, my axe and sling balanced on my fingertips, a smile bubbling up to my lips. “I mean you no harm.”

  The archers edged forward. Behind me, feet shuffled and people shifted their position, coming closer, chuckling.

  “Yeah, you better mean us no harm.” An archer said, “You’ll be dead if you try to harm us. Now drop your damned weapons.”

  I let the sling fall, the cords slipping through my fingers, and tossed my axe to the ground, twisting it so it fell on the flat of the blade.

  # # #

  “My name is Caldane of the Brightfoxes.” I laughed, raising my hands, spreading them wide, turning to welcome the pale-skinned people surrounding me, blue-eyed like me, platinum-haired like me, finally home, among my own kind. I breathed deep, my stomach fluttering. “I am Onei.”

  I expected—hoped—my smile to be met in kind, that the stony faces around me would break into grins, that they would approach me with open arms, patting me on the back, welcoming me to the homeland I had so long been denied. They did not, and my smile melted from my face.

  The storm hit, darkness slamming down like the deepest night, plunging the cave into an inky blackness.

  One of the Onei murmured a word of magic, and a magelight burst into life, a cold, bluish light. Snow and ice swirled outside the entrance. An old man, with a craggy face, one eye a milky white, a scar running from his forehead across that useless eye, down on his cheek, the bones of birds woven into his braids, limped forward, his good eye studying me, holding a staff of gnarled wood in his right hand, a glowing crystal set in the end. Although hunched and twisted with age, he stood taller than me.

  “What’s happening?” Aissal whispered in the Nayen tongue we’d been using since the monastery, pushing herself up, sitting up with her feet curled underneath her. One of the bowmen shifted his target from me to her.

  “I’m not sure,” I said in that same foul language. “Stay still and don’t make any quick movements.”

  The old man walked around the three of us, striking the tip of his staff into the stone and dirt of the cave floor with every other step. He hummed a tuneless melody, eye squinting, the fingers of his left hand moving in the odd random patterns of a spell-weaver at work, patterns I did not recognize. I kept myself still, frozen into the non-threatening position I’d assumed, even as he walked out of my sight behind me.

  The men before me gave me no indication of their emotions, their faces stoic and strong, empty of emotion, full of determination and concentration. They held their weapons—bows and axes—ready.

  A current of warm air brushed up against me, coming from deeper in the caves, teasing me with the smell of campfires, the smell of cooking meat and vegetables, the smell of home. “I am a Brightfox.”

  “Are you now?” the shaman said, his tap-tapping growing closer to me from behind and to my right. “You do appear to be an Onei, but all the Brightfoxes died a couple of years ago, caught by Silverhewer.”

  “Not all,” I said, craning my neck to see him
out of the corner of my eye. “Some of us were captured, not killed. My mother is enslaved in Windhaven. They took me to Shria to the monastery but I broke…”

  “Pish.” He waved his staff commanding my silence. “How do I know you are not a spy sent by the empire to kill our clan as they killed the Brightfoxes? Did they send you to infiltrate them, too?”

  The bowmen pulled their bowstrings back a little further, their bows creaking.

  Nostrils flaring, I tensed, my hands curling into fists, my temper urging me to throw myself at the old man, to force him to take back those vile words. “I am no damned spy.”

  “How do you know?” he stepped around me, his one good eye staring into mine. “You have so many spells intertwined with your soul, anchored into your being, too complicated and alien and wrong for me to unravel the meanings of, you could be an icefang warped to think it was an Onei man and I would not be able to say it was not.”

  “I am Onei.”

  He cackled, an irritating giggle bordering on madness. “That could be exactly what they want you to think.”

  “The empire took me because of my magic, and they used my magic, sacrificing it along with the souls of the innocent to get devils and demons to do the empire’s bidding, to pull infernal power into this world.” I lowered my hands, bringing them down to my chest, tracing the tattoos on my skin with my fingers. “That’s what you see here. The spells they cast.”

  “So?” The shaman placed the tip of the crystal on the tip of his staff against my chest, just over my heart. “You are the source of the leeches, the shadows that suck down emotions, thoughts, and magic on the lands of the empire? If I kill you, do I free all those people?”

  “No,” I said, blinking my eyes at a thought I’d never had before. Right? It couldn’t be that easy to disrupt the spell. Could it? I shook my head. “I don’t think so. No. They expected me to die during the sacrifices so my death probably has no impact one way or another.” I nodded, hoping I was right.

  He leaned forward, his mouth before my nose, his breath sour. “Perhaps we should kill you just to make sure.”

  I swallowed, gulping, my heart thumping even faster.

  “What’s he saying, Caldane?” Aissal asked.

  “Shh,” Rucker said.

  “Yes.” The shaman backed away from me, his eye turning to peer at Aissal. He bent down, sniffing. “These two: a blue-skinned coulven girl and a southlander boy.” He stood back up, lips twisting, squinting once more at me. “Interesting company you keep for an Onei. Are they your masters, dog? Do you dance to their tune?”

  “They aided me in my escape,” I said. “They are my friends.”

  “Even if you are what you say you are, that says nothing of these two.” The old man grinned. “You say they aided in your escape? How soon after they introduced themselves did that happen?”

  I edged away from them, glancing down at them, at Aissal, at Rucker. I snorted and shook my head. “No. We have been through too much together, and I have seen too much of their lives and hearts for them to be tricksters.”

  “Do we kill them or drive them back out into the gale?” one of the men said, gesturing with his axe.

  The shaman held up his hand, signaling for silence. He nodded toward me. “And what do you have in your pouch?”

  “My pouch?” My heart thudded in my ears. I pulled the pouch from my belt, holding it up. “I don’t think—”

  “Open it.”

  I licked my lips, cradling the pouch in my hands. “You don’t under—”

  “Open it, boy.” The shaman shifted his stance, thrusting his staff above his head with one hand, pointing it toward me, his other hand prepared for spellcasting, his weight shifting over his back leg, his foreleg pointed toward me.

  The other Onei tensed, readying for a fight.

  I slid the amulet out into the palm of my hand, the warmth of it pulsing, beating almost like a heart, a heart torn from a devil’s corpse.

  “What is that?” The shaman, his hands and body contorting in preparation for the casting of battle spells, leapt back.

  “This is a powerful talisman.” I took a deep breath. “I stole this amulet from the archbishop who cast the spells on me.”

  The shaman growled. With more speed than I thought him capable, the shaman darted forward, his fingers snatching the amulet out of my hands. He held it up before his one good eye, his magelight careening to his side so he could examine the amulet.

  The clear bronze half-spherical surface in the center of the amulet split through the middle, the top and bottom half sliding up and down like eyelids, revealing the burning eye of fire inside.

  # # #

  The boat rocked beneath Renaud’s feet, up and down, over and over, never ending. He leaned on his forearms, his forearms resting on the frosty prow, icy wind scraping against the beads of sweat forming on his brow. The waves broke against the bow of the ship sending a spray of salty water over him, held back by a shield spell, to dribble down to the deck.

  Renaud wiped his lips with the back of his hand, searching for a way to settle his stomach, pushing down against the bile threatening to scratch its way back up his throat, peering at the horizon, Timyiskil long gone behind them.

  “I would make you a lord.” The Morrin prince crawled up alongside Renaud, bent nearly double, face pale, eyes dark with shadows, shivering, huddling against the hull of the ship, protected by Renaud’s shield, his thin tunic wet, hugging his torso, collar around his neck, burn marks on his face and neck like smudges of dirt.

  “Would you, now?” Renaud said, spitting over the ship’s rail. “Why?”

  “Free me,” the prince said, teeth chattering, rubbing his arms. “Accompany me to Morrin. I will raise an army to take back my throne, and I will grant you lands and titles. You will have your pick of the fairest ladies, and your children will be noble, inheriting your lands, never wanting.”

  The ship flew up over a wave, hanging in the air for a frightening moment, a moment Renaud could not breathe, a moment stretching out forever until the ship crashed back to the water, slamming Renaud into the rail, white foam spraying over the sides.

  “Never wanting? No matter what people have, they always want something else, something more.” Renaud rubbed his ribs, gagging, but fighting his stomach back down. “Current circumstance excluded, I have a happy life, a comfortable life. Why should I throw that away for the promises of a prince without a kingdom?”

  “The empire is evil,” the prince said, sliding closer, his eyes shadowed, his skin chalky and pale, the stink of his breath sour and foul. “People like us, not lucky enough to have been born in Nayen, with skin the wrong shade, with hair the wrong color, we are all slaves, just peasants and serfs working to support the evil plans of a devil. How can you not fight against that?”

  “I was a peasant in the Shrian kingdom before the Nayen empire arrived at our shores,” Renaud said, gasping for breath. “I worked to support the plans of nobles and priests whose skin was the same shade as mine, whose hair was the same color as mine. My life improved with the coming of the Nayens.”

  His eyes wild, the prince jerked, looking back, cringing closer to Renaud, saying, “Shhh. Say nothing. Let us talk more, later.”

  Lyu-ra glided toward them, her steps graceful, unbothered by the deck bucking beneath her slippers, eyes twinkling, a smirk on her lips. She glanced down at the prince. “What are you two gabbing about?”

  Renaud shrugged. “He’s offering me land and titles in return for betraying the empire. You know, the ‘we should stick together against outsiders’ pitch.”

  “Oh?” She pursed her lips, jutting her bottom lip. “What was your answer?”

  “I’m still thinking on that.” Renaud steadied himself against the hull, his hand clasping the freezing rail, breaking through a thin layer of ice. “I haven’t heard a counter-offer, yet.”

  She shrugged. “If you betray us, I will not have sex with you.”

  Renaud blinked. “
What?”

  She grinned, winked, and strode away, holding her head high, ass swaying.

  “Wait.” Renaud pushed himself off the rail, stumbling after her. “There was an option for sex? Did I hear that right?”

  # # #

  I lunged forward, seeking to snatch the amulet out of his hand. A wave of force, a pulse of magical energy, slammed into me like a wall of wind, hurling me back, crushing my chest, driving the breath from my lungs, the impact echoing in my ears, the pressure a pain shooting through my temples like the blade of a dagger.

  Aissal screamed, throwing herself over Rucker.

  The shaman clutched the amulet in his left hand, the muscles in his hand and arm tightening, swelling like iron cords beneath his baggy, wrinkled skin, his face contorting with strain, teeth clenching. The other Onei stumbled back, their weapons clattering to the ground, squeezing their eyes shut, their mouths falling open.

  On instinct, without even the hesitation of thought, I cast a magesight spell. Black tendrils snaked out of the amulet, sweeping out to each of the souls in the cave, wrapping around their chests, their necks, inserting into the bases of their skulls, their chests, their mouths, the cold embrace of those tentacles enfolding me, buzzing in my ear, teasing my skin.

  The shaman struggled to cast a spell, forcing the words of the incantation out through his teeth, mangling the pronunciation, his right hand, now empty of his staff, forming the signs and foci. I recognized the words, knew them, even if I hadn’t heard them placed in this order or in this way.

  One of the Onei groaned, loud and inhuman, different than the others, the whites of his eyes transforming to black. He raised his arms, his hands spasming, his head flopping to the side, a thick strand of spit flowing from the corner of his mouth to his chest. He lurched forward, clamping his hands around the shaman’s head, clasping one hand over the shaman’s mouth, silencing him, ending the spell, the backlash tearing the skin on the shaman’s forearm like the claws of a devil.