"Home."
"To see your sister?"
"Yeah." The corner of Vel's lips lifted mechanically. "Not the most cheerful family reunion. I basically robbed her."
Elstrin idly traced circles into Vel's shoulder, through his uniform. It was just something to do, and he knew it calmed Kana. Vel didn't react much. "What's a Salt Hex?"
"A type of curse. Black magic, serious stuff. It's not generally used in fights because the spell searches for the weakest person in the vicinity to kill, so it could backfire and kill the user. But it's because it's so stable and sort of… defined, that it can be stored up for later use. So I bought one. Gabriel said they'd killed the sorcerer already, and there was a huge bullet wound in his chest, so obviously he's pretty immune to physical injury. But a Salt Hex removes every last trace of life from a person. All the nutrients and water in the cells disappear, and the DNA gets all scrambled up into useless strings of atoms. A ghost would be better off possessing a lump of wood."
"Wow. Sounds like a hell of a way to go."
"I don't care. I just wanted something that would kill him for good."
Elstrin rubbed his arm lightly. "You should get some rest, Vel. You look beat."
"Yeah, I'm tired," Vel agreed quietly, eyes closed. "But I want to wait for Gabriel. He's been really nice to me these few days. I want to thank him."
"I can pass the message along if you want."
"Really?"
"Yeah, of course. I'm more worried for you at the moment."
"Oh, okay…" Vel's voice trailed off. The final bit of tension dropped off his shoulders, and in less than a minute he was fast asleep.
Chapter 24
"Bad news," Gabriel said, striding into the outer hall, hair windswept. He stopped short upon seeing Elstrin and Vel huddled together in the corner of the huge space, the only people there. "Oh. Where's the colonel? And Snow?"
"Outside. What's the bad news?" Elstrin said quietly, not wanting to wake Vel.
Gabriel came closer and just scooped Vel up, carrying him as if he were a child. "Come on, then. Infirmary."
Elstrin followed him there. "He wanted to say thanks."
"Yeah, well, it got me a few days off work anyway. Not that it matters right now." Gabriel hurried out again, and Elstrin sat in the empty ward with Vel, absent-mindedly smoothing out the few wrinkles on his clean white blanket. Vel looked very pale and still, almost comatose, though he shifted away slightly when Elstrin touched his forehead. Elstrin drew back, reassured by the reaction. Barely another minute passed before Gabriel returned with Snow on his heels. The door clicked shut. The sounds of training outside were muffled, a million miles away.
"What's the bad news?" Snow asked, echoing Elstrin's question.
Gabriel took a deep breath. "Okay. Simply put, it was a dead man's switch. He was the switch. The thing that came off him when he died—I saw it. It was fucking huge—wasn't even a wraith or ghoul or, hell, I don't know. It was stronger than anything I've ever met."
"Hang on," Elstrin said. "Dead man's switch?"
"Yeah. Okay, let's step back for a moment—four years ago. This guy hates me because I wouldn't bring back his wife—you know this already, right? He kills my friends, then he kills Serpent, and the army puts its foot down. Snow shoots him in the spine—and he's a damn good shot, so he doesn't miss, and the guy dies. We thought that was that—and little did we know that the sorcerer had prepared a summoning ritual to commence on the event of his death. It brought a powerful spirit over, shackled to his will, to reanimate his corpse and keep doing his work. It's a very risky procedure. Essentially it only works if you're prepared to make the final sacrifice, to pay with your life, which in turns nourishes the spirit and keeps it stable. It was the perfect plan for somebody like him—he knew we wouldn't stop hunting him, so the best thing for him to do was make use of even his own death."
"How is that even possible?" Elstrin said faintly.
"Only three people in recorded history have ever succeeded in doing it. And four more in unrecorded history. Usually that kind of spirit is so strong it erodes the identity of the person who summoned it. So people just assume it's a powerful but normal spirit, and they waste time trying the wrong thing. What makes it even harder is that you have to exorcise, not dismiss. Our spirit probably took so long to strike because it was busy healing up the guy's dead body. When we caught him early this year, he looked and acted very healthy. We still knew he was an anchor, but he'd probably wanted to seem healthy enough to fool us into thinking he was alive. He was thorough— his plan was to deceive then attack, but he was willing to wait for it. You cadets entering the army was probably his best chance to strike, so he did."
"So the ghost itself wasn't actually malicious? It was just forced into everything by the sorcerer?"
"Yes. He made the ritual very, very meticulous; otherwise the spirit would've broken away in ten minutes. That's how sacrificial summons go. It's just amazing that he carried on as long as he did without losing control, considering he was fucking dead to start with."
"Then… then it's free now. The ghost. You said it came off when Vel killed him, so it has no host anymore. What happens now?"
Surprisingly, Gabriel simply said, "I don't know." He looked perplexed and strangely curious, like a child seeing himself bleed for the first time, or a soldier staring at his own blown-off hand, wondering why something that was so normal had suddenly changed so much.
"What do you mean, you don't know?" Elstrin said, outraged. "You're the freaking ghost expert! This sorcerer did all this because of you! Because of your black magic! Everything—"
"Maybe. But I have no answer to your question. I know a lot, but I don't know this." He paused, as if not quite believing it himself. "I have no idea what we're dealing with."
The ward was silent for a while. Then Snow, who had listened without interruption to Gabriel's explanation, said, "What's the good news, then?"
"That was it," Gabriel shrugged. "I don't know what we're dealing with. Considering the fact that most of what I do know about is lethal to some degree, let's hope this spirit is actually a guardian angel made to commit evil. Or something. I sure am glad we're not trying to fight an Esa. Those things are nasty."
Elstrin didn't know nor care what an Esa was. "Then what the fuck are we going to do? Will the ghost just go away? Is it—"
Something crashed terribly outside. It wasn't so much the discordant crumpling noise that made Elstrin's heart do a weird, anxious flutter—it was the feeling of unchecked danger that accompanied it. That heavy, dark feeling of instant fear and the knowledge that some last line of defence had failed. Snow jolted violently, clutching at his chest with a gasp, eyes shooting wide. Gabriel merely looked sharply out the window. The sound passed in a second and Snow straightened up again, but cadets were shouting in confusion. Gabriel turned and gave Elstrin an empty, twisted smile. "I guess that's a solid no, Elstrin."
"What was that?" he said, not surprised to find himself whispering.
"Around a quarter of Rem's outer wards tearing apart," Gabriel replied. He glanced at Snow. "That about right?"
"About," Snow agreed shakily. He unclipped his walkie-talkie and mumbled a short line of jargon into it. There was movement and the buzz of voices on the field, and Elstrin looked out to see the cadets being gathered together and promptly led back to the barracks.
"Code yellow. Standard evacuation," Gabriel explained. He sounded impossibly calm. "Anyway, carrying on. I think we can draw a pretty solid conclusion from all of this. It should've all ended when Vel used the Salt Hex. But it didn't. We're still being attacked. Whatever is out there is strong enough to destroy Rem's magic, as it just did. So…"
Snow sighed, a resigned, frustrated sound. "So it wants me."
"You?" Elstrin spluttered. "But you said—Gabriel—the sorcerer—" His mind was still lagging behind, unable to adjust to the mad twists and turns everything was taking. His head spun with information. The sorcerer died. The
n he died again. Andrew was gone, still for no good reason he could fathom other than that the universe liked to be cruel. Snow was sick. Rem was probably sicker. There was a ghost outside HQ.
"The sorcerer is dead, Elstrin. Utterly and completely. He doesn't even have a body. The spirit is acting of its own free will now, and it's here." Snow closed his eyes tiredly. "If only we'd realised it sooner."
"We couldn't have," Gabriel said gently. "Not without exorcising it to see what it really was, and I'm still glad we didn't go that way. What will you do?"
Snow stared at the wall for a minute, thinking, but without warning another one of those ripping crashes sounded nearby. Elstrin jumped and Snow winced silently, flinching. "Rem is silent," he finally muttered. "I can't hear him."
"What will you do, Snow?" Gabriel repeated quietly.
Another minute passed. The field was noiseless now, emptied of people. Elstrin imagined the other cadets huddled in the barracks peering out of the windows wondering what was happening. With a pang, he realised how worried Kana must be, but he wasn't going to leave. That fundamental desire to return some of the help Snow had given him was still there, stronger now than ever.
"I'll go speak with it," Snow said plainly.
He turned and walked from the room, deliberate and measured, like a man meeting his fate, or marching to his execution. There was some strange force spinning around him, a weird, fragmented aura that Elstrin felt wasn't for defence. It was like he was looking for something, probing around him as a mouse would twitch its whiskers to detect changes in the atmosphere. And he was getting nothing.
Elstrin moved to follow, but Gabriel caught his arm tightly. "Don't."
"Why does it want him?" Elstrin demanded, trying to shake his grip.
"Just go back to your dorm and lock the windows."
"I'm not going," Elstrin said flatly, words trembling. "He's my mentor and if this thing can kill him then I'm not hiding away doing nothing when he faces it."
Gabriel started to protest, but a third shaking boom cut through the air, low and ominous in the stagnant afternoon air. Again, he didn't seem to notice that disturbing sputter that Elstrin felt in his chest. "It's for your own safety. Believe me, nothing you do will make a difference."
"Why is it here?" he nearly shouted.
"Snow is the easiest way to get to Rem. And Rem is an old creature—he has many enemies." Gabriel paused, gaze faraway. "It's just a hunch, but if Rem's not talking to him… it's been a long time coming."
"What are you even talking about?" Elstrin said, though his anger and frustration were leaking out to be replaced by thin dread that he didn't understand.
"Whatever happens next, I don't want you to see it," Gabriel said softly, sounding more like he was talking to himself than to Elstrin.
"Why?"
"Because it'll break your heart." Gabriel glanced down, and Elstrin was shocked to see that his
eyes looked a little too wet under the bland white lights of the infirmary. He smiled sadly. "Go back to your dorm."
He walked out after Snow. Elstrin took a second to ponder what Gabriel had said.
Fuck that, he thought. If anyone has the right to break my heart, it's Kana, not Snow. He glanced back at Vel's motionless form one last time, and followed them.
x
It was the first time in his seventeen years of service that Stag had entered the dome. And it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.
He'd gone as soon as he'd heard the news. He needed to take care of the business with Matthews, but it could wait. It had to wait; this was a million times more important.
Cadno was back.
Travelling through the Mernot mountain range even as his walkie-talkie announced their arrival, scheduled to meet him in Rem's dome in mere minutes. He hurried there as fast as he could, but even so, the ground was already churned with boot prints when he arrived, the entrance to the dome white with dust from the soldiers' hands. Stag took a deep breath and walked in.
The sluggish, fragmented energy that washed over him wasn't as strong as he'd expected; nor was the dark fog that he'd been told often lingered inside the dome. Now, it simply looked like an empty observatory flooded in grey light. The air smelled oddly blank. Even though the place was clean and spotless, it felt like it'd been abandoned for years. The magic here just seemed… tired.
Cadno stood at the centre with Rem—a team of what was supposed to be a dozen men, though
Stag did an automatic head count and was dismayed to see only seven were present. They looked tall and imposing, bulky with the most advanced equipment the army had to offer, uniforms so travel-stained and different it was hard to tell they were Mernot soldiers. They turned and saluted Stag as he went to join them. Gille the dragon lifted his head and flicked his black tongue out. He had grown since Stag last saw him, before Cadno set out for the unchartered lands to the east almost two years ago. He probably measured at around six metres now, though the end of his tail was missing. A messy patch of scars on his side interrupted the smooth flow of his pearl-white scales, and when the dragon turned his head, Stag saw that his right eye was gone.
Then he looked at the soldiers, who had removed only the visors of their thick armoured uniforms, and realised with dawning horror that all of their right eyes were gone. One man was missing both, a strip of black cloth tied around his head. Stag gaped, horrified. "What happened?"
"Our eyes, or the rest of the men?" the commander, Garth, said. Stag recognised him only by the faded red band on his helmet; his voice, muffled by the kerchief over his mouth, was rough and garbled like he was speaking with a very sore throat. His face was lined and tanned, eyebrows flecked with grey that hadn't been there before. "The men died," he said emotionlessly. "A gate guard took our eyes. Small price to pay. The way is clear." He looked at Rem. "South-east, past the forests and mountains and deserts. We've set it up for you. The place is a vast, mirrored lake. You'll know it when you see it."
Rem smiled and took the man's hand, which only had three fingers left, and squeezed softly. "Thank you. All of you."
"So—that's it?" Stag said, still too shocked and uneasy for elation. They'd finally accomplished one of the biggest goals the army had been working toward, but… god, the things Cadno must've gone through to get there. To think that his command had sent Mernot's most elite fighters out into the suffering wilderness made guilt curl in his gut. Five had perished—of the last rare handful of dragon-speakers, five were gone. It was an unacceptable number. "You really found it?"
"Yes, colonel," Garth said. He laughed shortly, though his voice was still flat. "Don't feel bad. It needed to be done. Just don't do it again, yeah? We've had enough."
"Never again," Stag promised, feeling surer of it than he had anything else in his life. "Rem, will you—"
Snow's voice sounded from his walkie-talkie, declaring a code yellow in cadet area. Rem was stroking Gille's head, brushing off the dust that clung to his rough slate-coloured horns. The boy spoke without lifting his eyes from his task. "Yes. Just in time, too."
"For what?"
"I'm not too sure." Rem straightened up and addressed the soldiers. "I can't repay you for what you've done for me, but—"
"What's with the dramatic goodbyes, kid?" Garth snorted, and finally there was some wry semblance of feeling in his voice, like steel-plated amusement. "Sounds like there's some trouble up ahead in the playground. And we all miss good ol' Snowy. We'll go say hi. If the colonel will let us, that is."
Stag froze, stunned that Garth would still, after all the horrors he'd been forced into under his soldier's contract, turn to him for yet another order. Then he pulled himself together, gathered back the solid core of authority within him that had enabled him to climb to the near-top of the command chain in the army. Pushed aside his vast pride and respect for the team until only stern approval showed in his voice. "Of course, men. Do what you want," he said gruffly. "Mission accomplished. Welcome home, Cadno." Then he saluted them. They
returned it, and though their faces were obscured, Stag knew they were grinning.
"Okay," Rem smiled. "Let's go." As he went for the exit, followed by eight men and a dragon, Stag heard him murmur to himself, "Cadno. It's such a nice name."
Rem walked out of the dome just as Snow was walking out of the infirmary ward, a kilometre away. Stag watched him step into the sunshine, a pale being wreathed in light, and suddenly knew with overwhelming sorrow in his heart that Rem would never return.
x
The fourth and final collapse of Rem's wards sounded almost gentle, as if the remainder of the invisible magic was just giving up and letting go. As soon as the echoes faded, that awful feeling of openness and vulnerability increased tenfold, and Elstrin almost changed his mind on staying outside when the concrete safety of the barracks beckoned from the end of the field. He just repeated to himself, Fuck that. Stay here and pay attention and help Snow, god dammit.
Dragon Bone Page 37