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

by Watson Davis

  “Welcome to Windhaven,” I said.

  The three of us strode through a once massive gate, torn down and covered in snow, the ice in the wagon wheel ruts crunching beneath our feet. Dark blue stone walls with jagged parapets and shattered towers stretched out and around a ruin of a city, the heart still beating with smoke climbing up from chimneys, home fires burning, magelights shining in the built-up sections along the coastline, with the outskirts dark and deserted, a lonely plume of smoke rising here and there. A blue stone castle, dusted with white, huddled on an island connected to the town by a fortified bridge.

  “I’m cold,” Rucker said, hugging himself, pressing up against my legs as I walked.

  “I shall stay in a proper inn,” Aissal said, commanding in a mock regal tone similar to how Cole spoke. She tilted her head back, pulling her cloak tight around herself, raising an eyebrow, narrowing her eyes. “I shall sleep in a proper bed with sheets and blankets and a fire. I shall lock myself inside and not come out for a whole week.”

  “A week?” Rucker trudged along beside her, weary, eyes now haunted and sad, always sad, but a smile growing on his face. “Stay in bed for a whole week?”

  “At the very least.” Aissal brushed her hand over Rucker’s head, knocking the layer of snow from his hood. “And the chef will ask me what I want to eat and cook whatever concoction I tell her and the meals will be delivered to my room on a little silver tray with silver spoons and forks. The maid shall place the tray on my lap so I don’t even have to get out of bed.”

  “And when you need to take a piss?” I asked, leaning forward to peer inside what once must have been someone’s home, where someone lived and loved, but now a few unconnected walls, charred black from ancient fires.

  “You,” she said in that regal voice, pointing toward me with a long, thin finger, “are a vile and vulgar and common man.”

  “Yeah? Well.” I shrugged, studying the skeletal remains of an inn now roofless and packed with snow. “I may be a vile and vulgar and common man but I’m also a man without a single coin in his pocket. To get service like that, I’d need more than a couple of golden godlings. I think you’re going to have to be satisfied with sneaking into a stinky, warm barn and hiding in the hay. Unless you want me to break into someone’s home and take their purse?”

  “No.” Aissal said, sighing, wandering into the middle of the road, her foot sliding on a slick patch of ice, catching her balance without acknowledging the slip. “But I don’t want to stay in a barn, either. Surely if we find a temple, they would give us shelter for a night?”

  “The only temples left in Windhaven are dedicated to the empress,” I said. “You sure you want to go begging charming people like Diyune and the abbess for mercy?”

  Aissal turned her head away from me.

  “I’m cold.” Rucker shivered, rubbing his hands on his arms.

  “If we can find a building with a decent roof, we can start a fire and camp out.” A cold trickle of ice water fell down my neck. I shook my head to knock off the snow. “We can start scouting the town after we’ve had some sleep and a bite to eat.”

  “Does someone have a fire going over there?” Aissal pointed to a slim, wispy stream of smoke wafting up from a building off the central road, a building not visible from where we spoke.

  “Yes.” I peered up and down the street, to both sides, searching for signs of danger. “I’d prefer to stay away from other squatters.”

  A few steps closer and an icy path appeared leading from the road in the direction of the building.

  “Come on.” Aissal reached down, taking Rucker’s hand. “Let’s go get warm.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, knowing they weren’t listening. I watched the two of them running stiff-legged on the ice, struggling to keep from falling. I shook my head saying a prayer to Inare and jogged after them.

  Rucker turned to me as he ran, joy on his face, and said, “It sounds like a party.”

  Loud voices, several male voices, laughed and talked to each other, cheering like gamblers at a horse race spurring their mounts to victory, but I couldn’t understand the words or identify the language. I picked up my pace, trying to yell and whisper at the same time, saying, “Hey. HEY. Come back.”

  The crumbling wreck of a palace beckoned them forward, the roof missing, the wall on one side collapsed into a pile of rubble, the second story floor tilting toward the pile, but with large doors of bronze and wood in good shape and closed connecting to a solid wall built of blocks of a gray stone inset with tiles forming the pattern of a bear. Aissal and Rucker sprinted up the stairs to the door, excited and happy, and yanked the door open, darting inside, into a room lit by bonfires. I joined them a heartbeat later, snatching their arms to pull them back.

  Too late.

  Three of the soldiers, a human and two orcs, whirled around, bottles of liquor dangling from their hands, glaring back at us, wearing leather imperial armor on their torsos, their legs and hips naked. Their cheering and laughing echoing in the cavernous room, fading, they spread out, their concentration on us, moving away from their two companions fucking two women on a long table set up between a couple of piles of broken planks and beams, bits of chairs, of tables. A lurid red light flickered from the fires, flashing dancing shadows across the room, the smoke billowing up and staining the coffered ceiling, thin wisps escaping from the windows, a scene from so many of the hells I’d visited under Diyune’s spellcasting, but this was here in my world and it sickened me.

  # # #

  “Welcome back, Lieutenant Arcled,” General Silverhewer’s voice rang out across the courtyard of Windhaven Castle like the collapsing of walls in a long siege. Good, bad, or worse depended on one’s position in relation to those collapsing walls: inside, outside, or underneath.

  “I’ll clear a space on the meat wagon for your corpse,” Agholor whispered, moving away from Arcled, keeping his eyes down, his hands on the hilts of his swords.

  “Thanks,” Arcled whispered back, shuffling forward, puffing out his chest, shoulders back, saluting. “General, ma’am.”

  She strode through the broken-down and shoddily rebuilt ruins of the once-noble castle, her sparkling, gray eyes studying the wagon behind Arcled, a wagon stacked with the remains of the men in his command who didn’t survive the last excursion: Aram, an orc summoned from Dis; Drema, an orc from Ba-ator; Vincenzo, a human from Drethona; Karine, a human from Shria; Ro-gow, a human from Nayengim; Sheere, an orc summoned from Stone.

  Two lieutenants Arcled didn’t recognize swaggered by Silverhewer’s elbows, both human, in clean uniforms, uniforms ready for court, for dancing and making merry, both with what seemed to be exceedingly smug expressions on their ugly human faces.

  Silverhewer stopped before Arcled, putting her fists on her hips, shaking her head. “You return to me with half the soldiers I sent you out with, and without the treasure I ordered you to bring back to me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He bowed his head. “They slipped away in the blizzard.”

  “And yet, you’re here with your dead instead of out there doing your job?” she asked.

  Arcled nodded. “Just so.”

  “Perhaps, if you would assign that job to me and my troops, we could resolve that issue for you,” one of these new lieutenants said, his eyes locking on Arcled’s, smirking.

  “Your shiny new recruits would be dead before they crossed the Aytherron,” Arcled said.

  The lieutenant stepped toward Arcled, clenching his fists, grinding his teeth.

  Silverhewer raised her hand, stopping the human, possibly saving his life, or possibly saving Arcled from being thrown in the Tower of Tears and executed.

  “You could have left them for the icefangs,” the other lieutenant said.

  “I’ve been to the place where souls go when they expire.” Arcled shook his head, his estimation of the human dropping. “I refuse to allow my men’s souls to cross over without the proper rituals.”

>   “You’ve always been soft-hearted.” Silverhewer chuckled, shrugging her monstrous shoulders. “Frankly, it’s fortuitous you’ve come back early. We’re setting a trap for an escaped Onei slave, and I can use you and your men.”

  “General—” one of the lieutenants started to object, but Silverhewer cut his objection short, raising her hand, turning to them.

  “No worry,” she said. “Your recruits, shiny as Arcled described them, will be able to take it easy, to remain here in the castle as a reserve.”

  “General?” Arcled said, daring to risk the question. “As you can see, I’m a little short.”

  “Yes, you are a little short,” she said, smiling down at him, patting him on the top of his head. “You could use a few men to supplement your ranks, as well, but you’ll just have to make do with what the gods gave you.”

  # # #

  “Run,” I screamed, tossing Aissal and Rucker aside, throwing them toward the door. I snarled, growling out the incantation for magesight, ripping my sling from my belt, dropping a stone into it.

  “Hey! The party just got better. Coulven pussy,” the orc on my right said, leering, swaggering toward us, his dick growing hard.

  My first stone smacked that orc in the gonads, doubling him over, his eyes as wide as an icefang’s jaws, sinking to the floor. Sliding forward, identifying my next target, I dropped a second stone into my sling.

  “What in the name of Dispatro?” One of the soldiers stumbled back, looking down at his colleague gasping on the ground, his hands over his crotch, his knees pulled up almost to his chest. The soldier flipped his bottle around, holding it like a bludgeon, liquid pouring from the long neck, splashing on the ground.

  “He’s not collared.” The other soldier before me tossed his bottle away, sprinting sideways toward a scabbarded sword leaning up against a half-wall, keeping his eyes on me. I launched a stone his way, aiming for his head, but he ducked and my stone sailed over his head to ricochet off the wall beyond him, destroying the plaster in a spray of splinters.

  The two soldiers further away, the ones on the floor with the women, pulled out, dripping, rolling away from the women, one spinning to face me, the other already looking in my direction.

  The women were Onei women.

  Wearing slave collars.

  Dropping my sling, my third sling-stone striking the other orc in the eye with a satisfying thunk, a more satisfying squeal of pain, I jerked my axe from my belt, yelling in inarticulate rage, charging forward. The soldier pushed himself to his feet, scooting back, away from me, beginning an incantation. My axe struck him in the mouth, splitting his head open, pitching the top of his head backward, a stream of blood spurting into the air.

  The other two soldiers, both human, now had swords.

  One human soldier, one of the rapists, charged at me, yelling, swinging his sword. I ducked beneath his blade, slamming the haft of my axe against his ribs as I wheeled around, knocking him back, slashing at his hamstrings, missing.

  The other soldier loomed over me, holding his sword with both hands over his head, preparing to strike down at me. I chopped up into his ribs, my axe plunging into his lungs, his heart, his momentum carrying him into me, bowling me over, sticky blood and gore washing over me. I pushed myself to my knees, yanking on my axe to free it, the soldier’s ribs refusing to let my axe loose.

  The other swordsman lunged toward me grinning, and I released the handle of my axe, drawing my dagger from my boot, searching for a way inside his reach. One of the Onei women threw herself at him, plowing into his side with her shoulder, sending his sword clattering to the floor. The two hit the ground in a tangle of arms and legs, and I scrambled to my feet, stumbling forward, lunging for the hilt of the sword.

  The woman who had saved me reared up, screaming “Karisa!”, scratching at the collar around her neck, blue bolts of lightning shooting out from the collar, the black tendril connected to it swelling, enveloping her.

  The other woman stretched out toward her, crumpled on the table her bloody legs gathered up beneath her, crying, “Darila, no!”

  My savior lurched away with knees stiff, choking, gasping, groaning, her eyes blank, turning black, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth.

  The tips of my fingers brushing the hilt of the sword, an orc rammed into me, his arms wrapping around me, pinning my left arm, slamming me to the ground. “You’re mine, now.”

  Another soldier, the one who’d charged past me, called out, “I’ve got him!”

  He brought his sword down at me, but I wriggled and squirmed, throwing off his aim. His blade bit into the shoulder of the orc, loosening his hold on me, allowing me to roll away, and scrabble back to my feet.

  The soldier tugged his sword free from the orc’s shoulder. The orc, writhing, cursing, holding his shoulder, growled, “You stupid asshole.”

  The woman who had saved me groaned, her eyes glazed over, turned into a wight. She lunged at me, awkward and slow. I twirled away, grabbing her arm, and directing her to the soldier with the sword. The man, eyes wide with surprise, tried to push her aside, but she latched on him, clamping down on his throat with her teeth, ripping it out.

  Aissal threw herself at the orc I’d hit in the eye. He’d risen to his knee, pulling a dagger from his belt.

  “Stay out of this,” I screamed.

  She hurled herself at him, her hands glowing red, flashing bright when they touched the orc. The wound in his eye deepened, blood gushing out bringing with it shards of bone and chunks of brain. He pitched forward, the life gone from him. Aissal sat on her knees, her hands on her face, sobbing.

  I snatched up my sling, dropping a jagged stone into it.

  The last orc remaining staggered to his feet, his muscles rippling, lips pulling back from the tusks jutting out from his lower jaw. “I’m going to skull-fuck every last one of—”

  My stone bashed him between the eyes. He stood straight up, his entire body stiff, and he toppled backwards, falling like a tree chopped down at its base.

  I turned toward the last foe remaining, the poor Onei woman who’d been turned into a wight for helping me, the woman who’d sacrificed herself.

  “Please, don’t kill her,” the other woman crouched on the table, her collar sparking, the dark tendril attached growing larger, enveloping her, binding her.

  I slid my hand into my pouch, touching the archbishop’s amulet, feeling the tingle of it against my fingertips. I chanted, creeping toward the woman on the table, my left hand straining out toward her fingers spread, using a modified version of the spell the shaman had spoken mixed with a spell to unlock the collar, directing the spell against the tendrils, against the magical threads binding the collar, toward the lock on the collar on the woman’s neck.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and down her cheek. Her teeth clenched, her trembling hands reaching up to the collar, stopping short of the tiny bolts of lightning flashing out from the collar, striking her neck, her collarbones, her shoulders.

  The magic resisted, fighting against me, making the words of the chant hard to pronounce, my tongue thickening, the strands wriggling away from me, the amulet teasing me, beckoning me deeper into its web, into using more of its power. Aissal’s voice joined mine, light and airy, pure and sweet, and together, the magic unraveled.

  The lock on the collar clicked, a subtle sound, faint, bordering on inaudible, and the collar popped open, releasing itself, tumbling from the woman’s neck, falling to the ground toward the woman’s feet. Surprised, she jumped, kicking her feet out, allowing the collar to crash on the floor between them, cracking the dirt-covered tile, exploding with an ear-piercing squeal, melting into a mass of quivering black worms, the worms dissolving into the floor.

  She looked down at the disappearing remnants of the collar and back up at Aissal and me, her mouth slack, her ice-blue eyes blinking. The fingertips of her left hand touched her pale neck blackened by old dirt and singed by the magic but
lighter, shiny where the collar had been. She whispered, “You freed me.”

  The wind whistling, the ancient house creaked, the silence broken by the disgusting hum as the other woman, the woman who had saved me, lay on top of the soldier she had slain, gnawing on his exposed thigh, tearing off pieces of flesh.

  The newly-freed slave crept to my side, fitting herself against my chest, placing her hand on me. “Can you save her?”

  “No.” My throat grew tight, a sickness turning my stomach. “She has to be put down.”

  # # #

  Karisa, the Onei slave girl, led us through the outskirts of Windhaven, winding through deserted streets piled high with snow, the snow smooth without a trace of anyone or anything having trudged through since the last blizzard, to a circular plaza. I cast spells to smooth the snow, to return it to its virgin state, erasing the thick trenches and impressions left by our snowshoes. She sat down on the shattered remains of a sculpture of waves washing up on a beach, the top of an ancient fountain, the bottom covered with ice and snow, only legs and an axe remaining of the hero of the scene. “We wait here.”

  Aissal, her eyes tinted red, her blue cheeks shining with frozen tears, huddled with Rucker, holding his head against her chest, hugging him, rubbing his back, speaking words of comfort too quiet to hear.

  Empty buildings crowded around us, their roofs burned and collapsed over a lifetime ago with no one to come in and rebuild, the shutters fallen from the windows, a few hanging on by little more than a hope, the windowsills darkened, the soot and filth trailing down the walls like the tears on Aissal’s cheeks.

  I pulled my hood up further over my head, covering my face. I turned, getting a feel for the land, not liking something I couldn’t identify, a tingling between my shoulder blades, a sense of someone watching.

  A few dark limbs of spindly trees jutted up from the blanket of snow rising up from slushy, icy paths. A flicker of movement, I held my breath, keeping myself still, like a hunter in the deep wood luring his prey to him with stillness and silence, keeping myself from staring in that direction, but watching from the corner of my eye as one white-furred, dark-eyed head popped up, and another, and another.