The Scorched Earth

by Drew Karpyshyn

  “We will finish the job we began forty years ago,” Yasmin vowed. “In the name of the True Gods, we will cleanse this world of Chaos in all its forms!”

  Cassandra’s mind floated in a meditative fog somewhere between waking and sleep. The semiconscious state allowed her mind to rest as her body continued its slow but steady progress, instinctively placing one foot in front of the other as she marched through the ankle-deep snow.

  Meditation was a poor substitute for true sleep, but she didn’t have the luxury of allowing herself to stop. The ones who hunted her—the Crawling Twins—didn’t sleep. She could sense them scuttling along in her wake, tireless and relentless as they tracked her across the frozen plains. They were still at least two days behind her, but they were gaining.

  Her journey was made more difficult by a steady stream of wandering Easterners crossing her path. Their numbers were far greater than when she had first crossed the tundra on her way to the Guardian’s cave. Instead of a few scattered hunting parties or scouting patrols made up of three or four individuals, she was seeing processions numbering twenty or more, all heading in the same northeasterly direction. It almost seemed as if there was some kind of mass migration or gathering under way, though Cassandra had no idea what could be behind it.

  Each time one of the barbarian bands drew near she had to take steps to hide her presence. Sometimes she would have to change direction to avoid running into them, other times she would have to temporarily slow or pick up her pace. In every instance, she had to call on the power of the Talisman she carried in the sack slung over her shoulder, obscuring their sight so they wouldn’t notice the signs of her passing.

  She had long since stopped wondering at how she knew to do this; it had become almost second nature. The principle was the same as the one she’d used to cast out false trails to confuse and mislead the avian huntress during her initial flight with the Crown. It wasn’t something she consciously tried to do; it seemed to happen instinctively, as if something deep inside her—or inside the Talisman itself—sensed the danger and took steps to protect her.

  Unfortunately, the Crawling Twins were not fooled by such tricks. Even at this great distance, she’d felt their minds brush up against hers: They shared a simple, almost bestial, intelligence. Their thoughts were primitive and direct, but focused to the point of obsession. They had her scent, and nothing she could do would throw them off it. All she could do now was keep moving and hope she could stay ahead of them.

  That isn’t all you can do, the now-familiar voice that wasn’t her own said inside her head. You already draw upon the power of the Crown just by being near it. Think of what you could do if you dared to put it on!

  Cassandra ignored the voice as she always did. But its insistent presence jarred her from her meditative state. She shook her head from side to side as full awareness reluctantly returned, taking quick stock of her surroundings.

  Nothing had changed. The temperature was dropping and her belly was empty, but she was still strong enough to ward off the worst of the cold and hunger through sheer force of will. Hopefully by the time her strength began to falter, she would be in more hospitable surroundings.

  Her mission was still the same: get to Callastan and find a ship to take her to the Western Isles. Ahead of her were leagues and leagues of bare, frozen plains, populated by traveling tribes of savages. Beyond that was the breadth of the entire Southlands, swarming with Yasmin’s Inquisitors. And behind her were the Crawling Twins, inexorably getting closer and closer.

  Dwelling on all the obstacles in her path could only weaken her resolve, so Cassandra pushed them from her mind. Calling on her monastic training, she let herself slip back into a semiconscious meditative state, her thoughts slipping away until all that remained was the steady rhythm of her feet crunching on the snow.

  The Crown was a prison without walls, but it was still a prison. One Rexol was determined to escape.

  The great mage hadn’t been strong enough to contain the Chaos unleashed when he dared to put the Talisman on. Its power consumed his physical form; incinerating his flesh and turning his bones into a pile of burned ash. Yet though his body was gone, Rexol’s mind and essence—his awareness and his identity—had survived.

  Through sheer force of will, he had kept himself from being swallowed up into the infinity of knowledge swirling inside the Crown. The ordeal had left his disembodied consciousness floating aimlessly inside the vastness of the Talisman’s power, weak and virtually helpless. But over time his strength slowly returned, and he realized that his connection to Cassandra—forged through the invisible mark he had burned into her arm when she had been his ward—still existed.

  Even trapped in the Crown, he was still able to exert an influence on the mortal world through the young woman. Using her as a conduit, he had channeled the power of the Crown to create the false trails that had allowed Cassandra to reach the safety of the Guardian’s cave during her flight from the Monastery. In her current exodus he was the one twisting and altering the perceptions of the wandering barbarians to keep her hidden.

  And he was the one who kept urging her to use the Crown.

  Cassandra felt his presence. He knew she could hear his words in her mind; she had even recognized Rexol’s influence in them. But he doubted she understood what was really happening. She thought his words were a mixture of memories and recollections—ideas formed in some deep, dark recess of her own mind. She had no idea he still lived, and he was eager to preserve her misconception. Yet even though he’d tried to make his suggestions seem like her own, so far she had rejected them out of hand.

  Rexol wasn’t discouraged. He could sense he was beginning to wear down her resistance. She was getting weaker and he was growing stronger; eventually she would stop ignoring his suggestions, give in and use the Crown.

  When she did, he would be ready. And his imprisonment would end.

  Chapter 15

  SHALANA SAT STILL and quiet in the darkness, listening to the walls of her tent rustle and snap as they were battered by the wind.

  As clan chief, her domicile was the largest in the camp. Nearly fifteen feet on each side, there was enough room for her to stand fully upright, though for now she was seated cross-legged on a small fur blanket in the center.

  After five long years as chief, the tent still felt strange to her. She had lived here as a young girl with her mother, but she could barely remember those days. After the sickness took her, Norr’s father had taken her in. With only the three of them, they hadn’t needed much room: a cluster of small tents near the center of the camp was where she spent most of her youth.

  Even when Terramon had been around, she hadn’t lived with him. Her father had never remarried, and he was rarely in the main camp for more than a month at a time. He was always eager to begin the next campaign, eager to lead the next raid, eager to force the surrounding clans to bow down and pay tribute to the Stone Spirits. He had little time or concern for the needs of a young daughter; growing up, it was just easier for everyone for her to stay with her adopted family.

  When she came of age she joined the Stone Spirit war parties in their battles and raids, as did Norr. But that didn’t bring her any closer to Terramon. Norr’s father had taught her that glory in battle was only a means to an end, a way to protect and secure the things that truly mattered: clan and family. She cherished her time in the camp; that was the reason she fought.

  Terramon felt differently. For him, conquest was a goal in and of itself. When he wasn’t leading his warriors into battle, he was restless and sullen. He scowled and glared at everyone in the camp. He took little pleasure in the stories and songs shared over drinks in the Long Hall. He had elevated the Stone Spirits to one of the largest and strongest clans in the East, earning the respect and admiration of his thanes and his people. But they never loved him.

  Shalana had vowed her reign would be different than her father’s. She wouldn’t make the same mistakes. She wouldn’t force her th
anes into an endless succession of battles against neighboring clans like her father had. She would be the chief to bring peace and prosperity to the Stone Spirits. Instead, she sat alone in the cavernous tent, knowing that many of her people would be cheering against her when she faced Norr in three days.

  Why did you come back now, you great oaf? Dragging your Outlander friends and your Islander harlot with you? After all this time, why reopen these old wounds?

  In the first year after he left, she—like everyone else in the clan—kept expecting him to return. She had challenged him for leadership, but she’d borne him no ill will. Being chief was her destiny; it was her birthright. She wasn’t willing to surrender that to anyone, not even Norr. She thought her betrothed would understand that. She thought he would give her the honor of meeting her challenge.

  Maybe we didn’t know each other as well as I thought.

  As the months rolled by and he didn’t return, Shalana came to realize the truth: Norr had turned his back on her and the Stone Spirits. She accepted the truth for what it was and moved on. But the future she envisioned for her people never came to pass.

  When Terramon stepped down, the Black Wings—a recently conquered clan—refused to pay their promised tribute. The Red Bear was gone, and the new chief was a woman whose own father had not deemed her worthy of being named his successor. She was perceived as flawed and weak, and it made the Black Wings bold.

  Shalana had no choice but to rally her thanes and bring the rebel clan to heel. She broke them easily, proving her skill as a warrior and a leader on the field of battle. But when it came time to punish them for transgressions, she faltered.

  Her father would have doubled their tribute. He would have made prisoners of their warriors and hunters, and taken most of their weapons and food stores. But Shalana knew such a sentence would mean starvation and suffering when winter came. She was not hard-hearted enough to condemn scores of men, women, and even children to a grim, slow death.

  Terramon warned me not to be lenient, she recalled. He warned me the other clans were watching.

  What Shalana considered mercy, others saw as a lack of resolve. By failing to impose brutal consequences on the Black Wings, she inadvertently encouraged others to rise up against the Stone Spirits. More clans refused to pay tribute. Some even banded together, forming alliances in the hope they could become the dominant clan in the region.

  Shalana broke them all, one by one. Just like her father, she led her thanes in a seemingly endless cycle of war and bloodshed against the other clans. But instead of gaining power, influence, and glory for the Stone Spirits, her campaigns were a desperate struggle to hold together the fraying corners of Terramon’s empire.

  In the Long Hall and in the war councils, her thanes gave her their support. Yet she knew there were whispers and rumors that things would have been different if Norr had been chief.

  Maybe they would have, Shalana admitted to herself. But I had no choice. I did what had to be done.

  She tried to ignore the whispers. In battle after battle she fought to forge her own legend—one to rival the stories still told in whispers of the Red Bear. Through her actions, she thought she could win the respect and admiration of her thanes and the loyalty and obedience of her clan. But now she understood that nothing she did would ever be enough. Norr was something she would never be: beloved.

  She knew that the Red Bear had proved himself too many times in battle to ever be branded a coward. Yet his sudden flight in the face of her challenge should have cast some aspersions on his reputation. Instead, the opposite had happened.

  Many believed he had done something noble by leaving, sparing Shalana the shame of defeat, or sacrificing himself to keep the loyalties of the clan from being divided. His exploits—along with his prowess in battle, his incredible strength, and his great courage—became more and more legendary in the retelling. The myth and legend of the Red Bear became greater than the man himself. His absence only made them love him even more.

  She had stayed to lead and serve the clan, and they resented her for it. It was irrational, illogical, unfair. She knew some even thought that Shalana was to blame for driving away the Stone Spirits’s greatest champion.

  And in a way, I did. But I’m also the one who brought him back. Somehow, she doubted she would ever be given credit for that.

  She heard a familiar thumping coming from outside the tent—the sound of Terramon rapping his cane against the tent’s hide entrance flap, pulled taut to keep out the winter chill. Her father didn’t visit often, and when he did he only came to criticize. But at least he came. The same could rarely be said of her thanes or the rest of the clan. Outside of the official business of the Long Hall, they rarely sought her counsel or company.

  Gritting her teeth, she rose from the warm pelts lining the ground and pulled aside the flap to let him in.

  “Why are you always sitting in the dark?” he grumbled as he made his way inside, leaning heavily on his cane.

  Shalana didn’t answer but left the flap open a sliver so the dim light from the peat fire outside could shine through.

  “You are the clan chief,” Terramon reminded her. “You should have a lamp and oil to light this tent.”

  “Why waste the oil?” she countered. “I can find my way around in the dark.”

  Terramon gingerly lowered himself to the ground. He was only in his fifties, but nagging injuries from a thousand battles and three decades of campaigns through the dead of winter had taken a harsh toll on his joints and bones.

  “I warned you not to pay Norr’s ransom,” he said once he was settled.

  “The Ice Fangs would have killed him,” she said, her voice flat and tired.

  “So? He abandoned us. He abandoned you. Why is his fate your responsibility?”

  “I’m not so bitter that I would let a good man die out of spite.”

  “There are more important things you should be focused on,” Terramon reminded her. “Hadawas has called a Conclave. We shouldn’t be wasting time with this foolishness!”

  “The Conclave is still two weeks away,” she reminded her father. “We will be there. We have time.”

  “The clan must always come first,” her father insisted, as if he hadn’t even heard her words. “We must look after our own.”

  “Norr is one of our own,” Shalana reminded him. After a moment she added, “The clan still loves him.”

  “Do you?” her father demanded.

  Shalana didn’t bother to answer.

  “Is that why you paid the ransom?” Terramon pressed. “Is that why you tried to force him to marry you? Because your head is still ruled by a young girl’s foolish heart?”

  “He made a promise,” she whispered, her voice too low for her father’s aged ears to hear. “He should honor it.”

  “Speak up!” Terramon chided.

  “I knew there were some among the clan who would rather see Norr as chief,” she answered in a louder voice, trying to use logic to defend her actions. “I thought if we were wed, they would look at us as a united front.”

  “And you believed Norr would simply bow down to your demands?” Terramon snorted. “He didn’t come back to serve; he came back to rule!”

  I don’t believe that, Shalana thought. He’s not like you.

  “You should have told me you were going to bring him before the thanes,” her father chided. “I could have warned you this would happen. We could have prepared and planned instead of walking into his trap!”

  “Such a tragedy that I lack your great wisdom,” Shalana sneered.

  “You are in no position to mock me,” he reminded her. “Not after you left yourself open to being challenged in the Long Hall.”

  “What other choice did I have?” Shalana asked. “Bring him bound and gagged like a prisoner to stand trial for deserting us?”

  “Yes!” Terramon blurted out. “You let the clan and the thanes see him as their long-lost hero making a triumphant return! You should have
brought him in on his knees, like the cur he is!”

  “Humiliating him would not win me any friends.”

  “You care too much what others think of you,” her father lectured. “A clan chief doesn’t need friends. The thanes answer to you, not the other way around. You worry to much about pleasing them.”

  Shalana laughed, harsh and bitter.

  “This, coming from the man who chose Norr to be his successor over his own daughter!”

  “Is that why you think I picked him?” Terramon asked, clearly surprised. “To appease the thanes?” Now it was the old man’s turn to laugh.

  “Then why?” Shalana demanded.

  “I knew my days as chief were over, but you were not ready to take my place.

  “Living with Norr’s family had made you soft,” he continued. “You had the physical skills to be a great warrior but lacked the will to lead. As did Norr.

  “We are born in the winters of the Frozen East,” he continued. “We are the Stone Spirits: We must be hard and cold to survive.

  “Your feelings for Norr made you weak. Foolish. But I knew you were my daughter; I knew my blood still flowed in your veins.

  “I knew you would challenge Norr. I knew you would fight for what was rightfully yours. And I knew it would make you strong.”

  “You thought I could beat him?” Shalana asked, taken aback. Despite Norr’s size and strength, she’d always believed she was the more skilled warrior. Yet she’d always felt the rest of the clan, including Terramon, underestimated her.

  Terramon shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. In the end it did not matter which one of you was the victor. By pitting you against each other, I forced you both to see the truth. Your feelings were weak and childish. Strength is the only thing that matters. No matter who emerged victorious, the clan would have a leader who was strong.”

  “But Norr refused to play your game,” Shalana muttered wearily. “He left instead.”