Narud trotted to a stop. “We have to keep going,” he said.
Chantmer wheezed and shook his head. “First, rest.”
Nathaliey straightened her back. “Are we still being pursued?”
This was to Narud, but rather than answering straightaway, he cocked his head, sniffed at the air, and peered at the road behind them. He looked undecided.
“We have to assume we are,” Nathaliey said. “Keep going until we reach the bridge. We’re not safe here.”
Chantmer shook his head. “We’re not safe until we’re inside the garden walls, and perhaps not even then.” He stopped talking to gasp for more air. “But I can’t keep running.”
On this, they were agreed, and so they set off walking. Nathaliey’s legs burned and her heart was hammering away. Narud kept looking behind and sniffing the air, but when pressed, admitted he didn’t detect pursuit. Chantmer, after a brief period where it seemed like he’d sit in the middle of the road like a balky mule, picked up the pace, and they were soon striding along at a near trot.
“I can’t go on much longer, either,” Nathaliey confessed. “I feel faint, and my stomach is churning like I’m going to vomit.”
“I’ve recovered some of my magical strength,” Chantmer said. “I might be able to cast that spell again, if you can help me recall the words. It will be weaker the second time around, but it might be enough. Could you lend me what you have?”
“I have nothing to lend. I’m still spent from the first time I cast it. Narud, what about you?”
“We’ll need our magic to fight the enemy, not to run faster,” Narud said. He glanced behind. “Our pursuers draw near.”
“I thought we’d lost them,” Nathaliey said.
“I never said that. I didn’t detect them before. Now I do. Look.”
The road behind was a silky black ribbon through the marshes, illuminated by the full moon and the flickering swamp lights. Two of the lights were larger than the others, and growing. No, not growing. Coming closer.
“Blood of the Path, what is that?” Chantmer asked.
Nathaliey only knew one thing that looked like swamp lights. “That can’t be. They look like . . .”
“Wights,” Narud said.
She saw them now, two glowing blue figures coming up the road toward them. Two figures on horses. Undead spirits riding on undead horses.
“Wights don’t hunt the living,” Chantmer said.
“All the same, we’ll be in trouble if they reach us,” she pointed out.
“What is the spell for chasing off wights?” he asked.
“Something about immortui.” Nathaliey almost had it, but the incantation slipped away before she could grasp it. Damn slippery words. “Narud?”
“I don’t know, either.” He shook his head. “What else do we have?”
“Volans malleis,” Chantmer said.
“Not your hammers again,” Nathaliey said. “That won’t help. What else?”
The tall apprentice pressed his fists to his temples, as if trying to squeeze something out. “Nothing! I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”
The wights were close enough now to see their features. They were dressed in silver-blue armor, their horses armored, too. It was curious workmanship, decorated with filigree and studded with knobs, like no armor she’d ever seen, and it occurred to her that these were not the recent dead. The two men wielded maces bristling with spikes. They paused in the road, the animals stomping, and then nudged them into a trot toward the three companions.
Nathaliey had second thoughts about Chantmer’s whirling hammers. “Do it!”
He lifted his hands out and chanted the words of the incantation. Narud spoke in a lower tone, his words different, but augmenting those of their taller companion. Lending his strength. Two hammers materialized in the air, spinning rapidly about until they were a blur.
Even before the hammers rushed off toward the wights, Nathaliey pulled up her sleeves and put her own hands down. She had little strength left—after bleeding herself a few hours earlier and running for several hours, she could scarcely spare the cost. But they couldn’t outrun these ghostly figures on their own; they needed the power of the Crimson Path.
The hammers whirled through the air, one after the other. They smashed into the ghostly figures and blasted apart in a shower of white sparks. The two knights rocked back in their saddles, but neither was unhorsed as Nathaliey had hoped. The horses though, being separate wights, reared and tried to throw their riders, before snorting and tossing as they broke from the road.
Nathaliey’s spell hit her and her companions. There was more to it than she’d guessed, but it was pitiful, a shadow of the power she’d called up in Syrmarria. Would it be enough? The three apprentices turned and ran for home.
Moments later, pounding hooves sounded on the road behind them. The wights had given pursuit.
#
Markal had his doubts as to the wisdom of Memnet’s advice. True, he always had doubts, but this time they were legitimate. The wizard wasn’t in his right mind. Right now he was a head and a partially formed body buried in the dirt, asleep most of the time. It was nonsense to approach Bronwyn and ask for her help. She was a barbarian from a strange order of knights, who’d come to the garden with the express intent of murdering the master.
But he was at a loss as to what else to do and wondering whether she was really awake at this hour or if that had been the master having fun with him, and so he made his way quietly along the forest path, past his house and toward Memnet’s cottage. The forest was quiet, the protective spells wary.
He was surprised to see the cottage door open and the barbarian standing on the stoop with a lantern at her feet. Markal remained in the shadows, curious.
Bronwyn was already dressed in boiled leather armor, and now hefted her breastplate over her shoulders and tightened the straps. She went back inside and returned with her helmet and her sword in its sheath.
“I know you’re out there,” she said. “Preparing another attempt to chase me off? Go ahead, if you feel you must try.”
Markal approached cautiously. “How did you know?”
“I was warned.”
“Are you leaving?”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” She slung her sword over her shoulder and fastened the buckle holding it to her breastplate. “I wouldn’t be putting on my armor to ride away from here. No, I’m going to battle.”
“Battle? What are you talking about?”
“I told you, enemies are coming, and I’ve been preparing myself. What have you been doing since we last spoke?”
“Sleeping. I thought you were, too.”
“Oh, were you? Pleasant dreams, I hope.” Her tone was sarcastic. “Well, I haven’t been. I was meditating and praying to the Brothers to guide my hand.”
“Don’t you sleep? Weren’t you tired after so long on the road?”
“Exhausted. But I’m a warrior, Markal. A daughter of a king and a paladin of Eriscoba. When enemies present themselves, I will not be found in my bed.” She tucked her helmet under her arm, hefted the lamp in her other hand, and came to him. “What did the dead wizard tell you?”
“How did you know that’s where I was?”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to ask you to help us.”
She smiled. “I suppose I am helping, in a way. I might return to kill your master when I’m done, but for now, yes, I will help.”
Markal stared. “Who are you? And I don’t mean daughter of a king, paladin of Eriscoba, and all of that nonsense. Why did you come here? Why do you want to kill my master? Memnet the Great uses his magic to maintain the peace, to heal the land and its people, so why would you harm him?”
“Don’t deceive yourself, Markal. There is no other reason to become a wizard than a vainglorious lust for power. Isn’t that why you follow your master? You wish to rule and reign over the peasantry, don’t you?”
“No, that is impossibl
e.”
“Ha. You do not consider the common folk to be weak-minded fools, driven here and there by their appetites? Like blind moles, they think their tunnel is the extent of the world. They must be led by their betters or they will destroy themselves. You believe this, don’t you?”
He thrust out his chin. “And you don’t?”
Bronwyn chuckled. She reached back to her sword hilt as if assuring herself it was still there, and her expression darkened. “I must go. Stay or follow as you wish, but there will be battle. You may not survive if you come—only the Brothers know for sure.”
She set off, and he followed. In spite of her boasting and her apparent ability to watch Markal from afar, the barbarian paladin’s eyesight was not so keen that she could travel the darkened forest without difficulty. Even with the lamp in hand, she picked her way slowly along the path until they’d reached the open ground beyond. Once there, however, she turned off the lamp and quickened her pace, moving only by moonlight.
By the Brothers, did this woman never tire? She must be carrying forty pounds of armor and sword, but Markal had to trot to keep up.
They reached the north gate a few minutes later. The keepers had concentrated their efforts here, being as it was closest to the road, and the wards were partially rebuilt. They strengthened Markal as he approached, then seemed to slam shut as soon as he’d passed through the opening in the brick wall and into the countryside beyond.
It was darker here, and Bronwyn handed Markal the lamp, but he stubbornly refused to light it. Let her stumble in the dark if she insisted.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“There are enemies coming. Can’t you feel them?”
“What kind of enemies?” he asked, skeptical.
“They’re out there.”
“So you say. They’ll never reach the gardens, they’ll never even cross the bridge.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“You were the first. Anyway, if they did somehow make it across, we’d be safer within the garden walls. The magic will protect us inside. Out here, not so much.”
“You will be protected. I won’t. Your gardens are trying to reject me with every step I take, thanks to your infernal sorcery. I feel stronger with every step up the road.”
“You feel even stronger? Well.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Bronwyn said.
“Ah, yes. Well, if you would prove yourself a friend and not an enemy, that would change. I could include you in their protection myself.” He couldn’t help sounding a bitter note. “You might need to stop slaughtering innocent keepers, of course.”
“The old woman is quite safe for now. Rest easy, I’ve spoken with her, and she holds no anger in her heart.”
“Are you mad? You killed her!”
Bronwyn stopped and drew her sword. A faint red glow worked along the surface, then it was gone, replaced by the gleam of cold steel in the moonlight.
Markal was no longer intimidated. “Is this a threat? Will you hack me down, too?”
“Shut your babbling mouth and listen.”
The chickens in the wire-enclosed coops built along the outside wall lay silent, and the horses were quiet in their stables. Darker shadows on either side of the road marked fairy forts some fifty feet ahead of them. These had nothing to do with fairies, if such a thing existed, but were tumbled over stone from ancient burial mounds. By custom and superstition, peasants throughout the Western Khalifates left the mounds untouched, allowing brush or trees to grow uncut. Last time Markal had stepped outside the garden at night, a large owl had been hooting in the trees growing on one of the forts. Not tonight. There wasn’t so much as the rustle of a breeze in the leaves.
Markal shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You hear nothing? Isn’t that warning enough?”
Ah yes, he understood. He hadn’t noticed at first, but there was a sound conspicuous in its absence.
“The crickets,” he said.
“Aye. Two cages on hooks at the entrance to the garden—I saw them when I entered. So unless someone removed them at dusk . . .”
Markal glanced behind them. “No, they’re still there. And the crickets should be chirping. You do that in your country, too?”
“We do. They are harbingers, warning sentinels. The pair at the gate have warned us of approaching enemies.”
“You mean wights? But what would bring the undead here? The garden is fertile—it reminds them of their ultimate fate. The crickets are only custom—no wight would come within a mile of the walls.”
“The silence of your crickets is not the only warning I’ve received, only a confirmation,” Bronwyn said. “Come. I may have need of your vision. Quickly, now.”
Without waiting to see if he would follow, the paladin strode forward along the narrow road that made its way between the tree-covered mounds and into the meadow beyond. Markal was inclined not to follow. Let Bronwyn wander off to battle wights. No sword could fight the undead; they’d rip her soul from her body.
But in spite of his earlier proclamation, a niggle of doubt remained. Why were wights approaching the garden? Would they try to enter?
Moving swiftly, the pair followed the road through the mounds and up a small hillock. From there, a moonlight vista of misty, knee-length grass stretched down toward the bridge over Blossom Creek.
Bronwyn reached under her breastplate and pulled out something that gleamed in the moonlight. “I will return this.”
He took it. “Memnet’s Orb!”
“I trust it will help.”
Markal rolled it over in his hand. It was as cool and inert as a smooth stone plucked from the riverbank. The truth was, he had no idea how to use it, or even if it had any power left after Chantmer’s abortive attempt. If Chantmer had learned its secrets, he’d not shared them with Markal. But he wasn’t about to return it to the woman, so he stuck it in the pocket of his tunic.
“Is the bridge defensible?” Bronwyn asked, gesturing ahead of them.
“More than defensible, it cannot be breached. It cannot even be found.” He glanced at her and had second thoughts. “You were the first.”
“I didn’t cross the bridge. I took my horse through the water. Quite an illusion you managed. It looked as though a waterfall was about to sweep us over, yet the animal’s hooves were barely wet when we reached the other side. Tell me about the bridge.”
“It’s much older than the gardens. There are old runes on the stones. They’re nearly worn away now, but the bridge has long been thought worth defending. The illusion of the waterfall was only part of the creek’s defenses—the current should have risen and swept you off.”
It had once been swift enough to manage without magic. The creek was over a hundred miles long, flowing out of the jagged desert mountain range on its way north to join the Nye, and from the height and span of the bridge, the river had once been much larger before the desert had encroached from the south. Blossom Creek—surely in those days known by a different name—must have even been navigable, as attested by the rubble of a tower a few hundred feet downstream, the kind still built on waterways to collect tolls.
“Anyway,” he added, “the bridge is narrow enough, and there is some magic in it.”
“Then we will make our stand there,” Bronwyn said.
Against what, Markal was about to ask. Wights? But before he could voice this question, three figures caught his eye, hurrying up the road on foot from the far side of the creek. They were still a half-mile out, and even with his keen vision, he couldn’t pick out faces or even clothing. But one of them was noticeably taller than the other two.
Chantmer? It must be, and his companions Narud and Nathaliey. Narud and Chantmer had set off for Syrmarria to fetch Nathaliey only that morning, meaning that they’d traveled nearly sixty miles in fourteen or fifteen hours. If they’d been running since Syrmarria, they must have used magic.
Bronwyn was striding ahead once more, but Markal stayed wher
e he was to survey the scene, searching for the threat. There! Two riders followed some hundred yards behind the runners. They glowed a faint blue. Wights, curse them, pursuing Markal’s companions. But why were the wights keeping their distance instead of riding down the three fleeing apprentices?
The answer came a moment later. Four more mounted figures materialized farther back, riding hard, moving so swiftly and silently they appeared from a distance to be floating above the road. More wights. They continued up the road until they overtook the lead pair. All six stopped in the road, and Chantmer, Nathaliey, and Narud began to pull away. Then the wights formed ranks on the road, two across and three deep, and broke into a trot, followed shortly by a full charge.
Markal ran after Bronwyn, who pulled on her helmet as she approached the bridge.
And then a breeze lifted from the grasslands ahead of him. It carried a rustling, as of dry leaves, and a whisper, a clawing in Markal’s head. Something was hunting, sniffing for him. A current, an entire river of blue light flowed down the road from behind the hard-charging ghostly riders. It was a small army of wights, scores of them, all jumbled together and surging toward the bridge.
Chapter Nine
Nathaliey and her two companions ran down the road with the two undead knights riding after them. She kept expecting the pursuers to fall away as their attention wandered, yet these ones kept coming.
Impossible. Wights cannot hunt the living.
Did she believe that? Did she really? As a child, she’d hung a cricket at her door at night to turn away the undead. Later, the master assured them this was the folly and superstition of the unlearned. A wight could certainly kill a living soul, he agreed, but this was happenstance. The souls of the dead hated the living, but they didn’t have the capacity to purposefully stalk them.
The dead had only one thought passing through what remained of their minds: to hide from the Harvester before he and his hounds collected them in his bag of souls. Take reasonable precautions, and wights posed no threat. They certainly wouldn’t pursue the living down a country road.
But when Nathaliey looked behind her, there was no denying it. As fast as the three apprentices ran through the night, the glowing figures were pursuing at a relentless pace and slowly drawing closer, now only a few hundred yards behind.
The Red Sword- The Complete Trilogy Page 9