Vengeance

by Gail Z. Martin

  Jorgeson held onto the reins and to his seat white-knuckled. No one else could hear the pounding of his pulse or see the sweat that beaded on his forehead, but he could not quell his fear when the world itself ripped asunder before his eyes. No more monsters poured out of the Rift, but even by the moonlight, Jorgeson saw that a foul black substance oozed from the split in the air, flowing like oil. Everything it touched died, withering the grass and saplings in a circle all around the Rift, contained only by a second salt circle around the area where the tear in the fabric of reality opened.

  Roach took up chanting, arms raised as he faced the Rift. His voice did not crack, and he never faltered as the words of the Old Language poured out of his mouth. As quickly as it appeared, the dark tide withdrew, and the Rift snapped shut as if it had never been.

  Spider faced the mine, and he shouted words in the ancient tongue, calling the restless spirits forth.

  The temperature dropped in seconds, going from comfortably cool to cold enough that Jorgeson saw his breath. A gut-level sense of dread preceded the ghosts, an instinctive warning for the living to hide away from the horrors still to come.

  Guards cursed and cried in fear, calling on the gods or shouting obscenities to buck up their courage, but they did not leave their posts. After what befell their comrade, it was obvious none of them wished to try their luck with either the higani or the ghosts.

  Gray fog rolled from the mouth of the old mine. It curled and eddied, moving like no mist he had ever seen in nature. Now and again, Jorgeson glimpsed distorted faces and twisted bodies in the cold fog. He shuddered when they turned toward him, blank sockets still fixing on him as if they could make him out even within the protective circle. They rushed from their tomb with a frigid blast of wind that smelled like coal and rot.

  Spider’s full attention turned to the revenants, and he wove a complex mesh of sigils in the air, each one burning with fire. Whatever language he used to control the ghosts sounded harsh and guttural to Jorgeson, utterly unfamiliar. The ghosts surged as if they meant to overtake the guards in their protective circles, and the soldiers shuddered.

  Spider stood quickly, legs splayed and arms upraised as if to bodily block the rush of spirits. They swirled around him, unable to break through the warding of salt and iron, held back by magic and the elements. Some of them encircled each of the guards, though they left Roach and the higani alone.

  A cold wind swept past Jorgeson, stirring his cloak and riffling the horses’ manes. Once again the spooked geldings whinnied, stomping their hooves and jerking against the reins, but Jorgeson and their hobbles kept them inside the protections of the salt circle.

  Ghosts clamored all around the circle, pressing their misshapen faces against the warding as if it were glass. Their eyes held him in a baleful gaze, promising painful death if they could drag him from his sanctuary. The bony hands of withered corpses scrabbled against the warding, and Jorgeson heard their moans and cries, wailing like the damned. Many of the ghosts showed the injuries that had cost them their lives, broken bones and fractured skulls, crushed bodies and severed limbs. Their appearance shifted as he watched them, sometimes like fresh corpses, and then fading to skeletons and then to faded images made of mist.

  Spider shouted, and the specters pulled back abruptly, sweeping down the small grade from Jorgeson’s wagon toward the blood witch, then parting around his warding like water around a rock. The ghosts that tormented the guards also felt the pull of Spider’s spell and joined the others in a ghastly, terrifying cavalcade toward the sleeping town in the distance.

  The higani finished stripping flesh from the bones of the downed guard and the young sacrifices. Blood streaked their bone-white shells, and they moved ponderously, heavy with their feast, but they made their way down toward the fields, clicking and chittering as they went.

  Spider and Roach continued their chant, though Jorgeson heard exhaustion in their voices. Roach finished first, shoulders slumping as he smudged open the salt circle and dispelled the warding. Spider’s litany went on for several more minutes until his voice cracked with strain and he sounded utterly drained. He spat out the final words of the ritual, and as his wardings fell, so too did those around the guards and Jorgeson.

  The ghosts were gone, the monsters fled in search of fresh meat, but the night still held its unnatural chill. Or at least that’s what Jorgeson preferred to think as he felt the tremor through his body and saw his hands shaking.

  Perhaps these two are not so useless as I thought.

  The guards moved cautiously from their safe havens, crossbows still raised though they could have done no good against either higani or angry ghosts. They looked pale in the moonlight, eyes wide with barely contained terror, and from the smell of it, at least one man had pissed himself.

  “What’s to keep them from coming back this way?” One of the soldiers asked as Spider gathered up the materials he had brought to work the ritual.

  “Nothing,” answered Roach. That’s why we’re going to fall back, and we’ll ward the camp. Let them do their worst tonight with us well out of reach. The Valmondes won’t appear out of thin air; they’ll need time to find out what’s happened and travel here. So we wait. And when they come, we’ll be ready.”

  Heady with the power of having ripped open the sky and restrained both monsters and the restless dead, Roach’s voice held a new confidence that chilled Jorgeson.

  “What you saw is nothing compared to what’s coming for those farmers,” Spider added, and his usual whiny pitch tonight took on a deeper, more certain tenor. Both witches seemed to thrum with power, as if the forces they had called, bound, and unleashed left them vibrating with its overflow. For the first time, Jorgeson felt afraid, and he thrust his fear down ruthlessly, refusing to give in to it.

  I held my head up to Blackholt, and I’ll be damned if I’ll cower to these pox-faced half-grown boys, Jorgeson thought. He knew that now he had seen the full measure of the blood witches’ power, he would not underestimate how dangerous they could be—to their enemies, or to him.

  They pulled back about a mile from the mine. Jorgeson railed at the two witches that at this distance, they would be too far to gain their prize should the hunters show up to deal with both the ghosts and the monsters.

  “If they show up, it won’t be a quick thing,” Spider assured him. “Let them wear themselves out battling the higani and fighting the ghosts. We don’t want to be in the middle of that. Once they’re worn and bloodied, you can sweep in and seize your prize, while we send the ghosts back into the depths of the mine and dispatch any monsters that remain.”

  “How will we know, since we’re out of sight of the mine?” Jorgeson demanded.

  “By scrying,” Roach replied as if the answer were obvious. “One of us will watch the waters at all times. Don’t worry; you’ll have your hostages.”

  As the sun set the next evening, Jorgeson’s temper frayed. “You said the Valmondes would find out,” he fumed at Spider and Roach. “You were certain they would come.” He threw up his hands. “We’re wasting time.”

  “Patience,” Spider replied, in a tone that only stoked Jorgeson’s foul mood. “We don’t know how the Valmondes are discovering where the monsters have come through, but their kills are too timely, too precise to be sheer accident. I suspect they’re doing some scrying of their own, but exactly how I can’t know.”

  “If they scry, they’ll see us. They won’t come,” Jorgeson argued.

  Roach shook his head. “We are warded, my lord. I’ve placed deflection sigils around us, and we both wear talismans that dampen others’ ability to sense our magic. They will come.”

  Late that night, the two blood witches roused the camp to take their places. Jorgeson stormed from his wagon, armed for a fight, and saw nothing but the empty field in front of the darkened mine.

  “Where are they?” he growled.

  Roach gestured toward a shallow bowl into which he and Spider peered intently. Jorgeson mov
ed to join them and felt a frisson of power down his back as he stepped into their space. He looked down, expecting a salt line, and saw nothing, but apparently, he had crossed an arcane protection.

  “Look,” Spider said, pointing to the bowl.

  Jorgeson stared at the water, and images appeared on its tranquil surface. He saw cloaked figures working their way up the hill from the village, only minutes away.

  “What of the monsters?”

  “They’ve killed the monsters,” Roach replied. “Quite a battle. We saw much of it. This is not the first time they’ve faced higani. Clearly, the hunters knew how to fight them.”

  “I didn’t bring you here to praise them!” Jorgeson said, glowering. “Are their witches with them?”

  Spider shook his head. “Not that we can tell. They might also have deflection spells, but at this distance, I believe we would still be able to sense them.”

  Jorgeson’s smile was predatory. “Then this should be easy.”

  Not long after Jorgeson and his party hid themselves for the ambush, three men trudged up the hill. Even in the moonlight, Jorgeson could see the blood that streaked the men’s faces and the torn fluttering of their cloaks, evidence that the fight against the higani had not been without cost.

  I want to get my hands on their witches, Jorgeson thought, but if we take the hunters, we can force the witches to come to us. This will work. This has to work. It’s not too late.

  “There’s the mine,” one of the hunters said, gesturing toward the dark opening in the hillside. His hood fell back, revealing curly blond hair that fell to his collar. Corran Valmonde, Jorgeson thought.

  “We’ll watch your back.” The speaker had the broad shoulders and muscular arms of a blacksmith, and Jorgeson guessed it was Ross, the farrier’s son.

  “Don’t take too long. I don’t like being out in the open.” Jorgeson could not identify the third speaker, but it mattered little. He would force confirmation of their identities from them soon, and much more besides.

  Corran Valmonde dug into his bag and withdrew four sturdy stakes, which he pushed into the ground at the quarters. He strung a stiff white rope between them, making a warded salt circle, large enough for him and his companions to stand inside, and began the chant to send the ghosts back into the mine and seal them away.

  Jorgeson chafed at the delay. Roach and Spider had argued that it made sense to let Valmonde return the spirits to their prison, as it would further tire him, weakening his ability to resist capture afterward. As Jorgeson had no desire to find himself trapped between the angry ghosts and the hunters, he reluctantly agreed, though now he fought the instinct to call down his guards and seize the men while they remained easily within his grasp.

  Corran continued his chant, and one by one, the stakes he had driven into the tall grasses began to glow: red, white, blue, and golden. The wind rose, and the temperature dropped, and fog rolled in from all sides, filled with the spirits of dead miners. They swirled and shrieked around the circle Valmonde cast, but to no avail. His words bound them, and as Jorgeson watched, fascinated by what he saw, the ghosts appeared to have no will to break away from the spell the undertaker cast.

  As Spider and Roach had told him beforehand, this time, the ghosts paid no mind to them and their guards. The revenants swirled in a maelstrom around the three men within the circle, growing nearly solid, wailing and keening in grief and anger.

  The chant reached its climax, and the circle flared.

  “Those of you who are willing, I free you and consign you to the After,” Corran’s voice rose above the wind and shrieks. “Doharmu awaits.”

  Once more, the air above the clearing wavered, and a very different opening appeared. Jorgeson gasped despite himself and instinctively shrank back. This was no Rift, imposed upon nature by the will of sorcerers. It was as if the night opened of its own accord, a door unlocked from inside, and what lay beyond stretched dark and unknowable.

  Jorgeson had no words to describe the primitive fear he felt, the almost physical compulsion to drop to his knees in worship and abase himself before the God of Death awaiting beyond the portal.

  Tendrils of fog peeled away from the vortex surrounding the warded circle, streaming toward the black doorway that led to the After. As they passed the threshold, the ghosts fell silent, fading into the all-consuming darkness.

  The rest of the ghosts raged at the hunters inside the warding, a storm of gray faces and glimpses of mangled limbs. Corran Valmonde lifted his hands once more and raised his voice in chant. The maelstrom of spirits tamed, slowing its swirling until row upon row of sullen ghosts stood surrounding the circle and glared balefully at the living men within.

  “Go,” Corran ordered. “If you will not go to your rest, to Doharmu, then return to where you died. Let it be your tomb. Trouble the living no more.”

  He might not be the full witch his brother was, but Corran’s power compelled the dead to do as he bid. The spirits’ faces and forms faded once more into mist as they swept back into the darkness of the abandoned mine. Jorgeson could not make out the next words Corran spoke, but he imagined them to be some sort of binding to compel the ghosts to remain within the mine.

  With the ghosts gone and the monsters destroyed, Corran lowered his hands and slumped, apparently weary from the magic. One of his companions steadied him, and Corran dispelled the wardings with a word and a gesture, then gathered the marked stakes and coiled the rope, replacing them in his bag.

  “Now!” Jorgeson and his guards rose from their hiding places and surrounded the three hunters, crossbows leveled at their chests. Shock gave way to anger, and grim resignation as Corran and his companions threw down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. The smugglers moved in to bind their wrists, making it clear by their rough treatment that killing their companions would be avenged.

  “Who are you?” Even on his knees, Corran Valmonde did not know his place.

  “Hant Jorgeson. The man who’s going to claim the bounty on your godsforsaken corpse.”

  Corran spat, aiming for Jorgeson’s shoes. “Machison’s lackey. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

  Jorgeson grabbed a handful of Corran’s hair and yanked his head back. “I swore I would bring the outlaws to justice,” he grated. “Your bounty is good, dead or alive. But before I kill you—before you beg to die—you’re going to do a few things for me.”

  “Go to the Abyss,” Ross yelled, earning himself a punch to the mouth. He looked up, bloodied but unrepentant.

  “The other hunters were defiant too—at first,” Jorgeson mused, “before we broke them. Do you remember? The ones we gibbeted in the square for treason.”

  “We remember.” Corran’s voice sounded like gravel. “And we’ll avenge them.”

  Jorgeson smiled. “Not today.” He drew his knife, and lightly traced its tip along Corran’s jaw, down over the artery that pulsed in his neck, hovering at the hollow of his throat. “Before I cut you, before I make you beg for the chance to tell me everything you know to stop the pain, I’m going to let the men whose companions you killed work off a little frustration.”

  “Smugglers,” Ross spat. He looked to Corran. “Told you we should have killed them all.”

  “All right boys,” Jorgeson said, walking away. “Have your fun. Just leave them breathing. Live bait works better.”

  As Jorgeson walked past the blood witches, he barely spared them a glance. “Make sure the outlaws remain alive and don’t break their jaws. I have questions that need answers. I want the rest of them, and I’m certain Valmonde has some kind of bond with his brother that will draw them here.”

  “As you wish, my lord,” Spider replied, eyes alight. Both of the blood witches watched eagerly as the smugglers closed on the bound captives.

  “The rest of you, keep your places. The other outlaws will come meaning to attack, so stay sharp,” he warned his guards.

  Jorgeson retired to a place out of range of the blood spatter. He le
aned against a tree, watching as the witches drew close enough to monitor the beating, perhaps even to draw energy from the pain. Later, he would have the witches revive the prisoners so that he could interrogate them. He would learn their safe houses and their co-conspirators, the names of people and villages that had sheltered them and aided their raids, everything he needed to regain a measure of his damaged standing in the eyes of the Crown Prince.

  The smugglers set on the captives with fists and kicks, practiced enough in striking to injure without killing. He suspected they had done this many times before, perhaps roughing up merchants late to pay for their goods. The outlaws took the thrashing stoically, refusing to cry out except when grunts of pain were forced from them by a punch to the gut or an involuntary reflex.

  The smugglers were as brutal as they were efficient. Jorgeson crossed his arms and watched them work, as they split lips and broke noses, blackened eyes and wrapped their hands around the men’s necks hard enough to leave fingerprints in the flesh. Even with their wrists and ankles bound, the hunters tried to fight back, lurching from side to side, head-butting those who got close, drawing up their knees and kicking. Yet in the end, they lay bleeding and battered, as the smugglers stood over them, dripping with sweat, heaving for breath, bloodied fists still clenched by their sides.

  Amateurs, all of them, Jorgeson thought. While he had never relished torturing prisoners himself as Machison and Blackholt clearly did, he had mastered the techniques. Especially with the blood witches to help with the questioning, Jorgeson had no doubt the men would break. They all did, unless death took them. Though the hunters they had killed, the men whose corpses they displayed in the giblets, had given him precious little for all his work.

  It will be different this time, he vowed.

  Jorgeson moved away from the tree, eyeing the darkness that surrounded them. The smugglers had stepped away from the prisoners, and Jorgeson called the blood witches to him. “The hunters live?”