“That is what we have to decide,” Cemi said. “Or else we just sit here for another day. And another.”
Leaving the basket of food scraps, Analera slipped away, hoping to return to the upper levels unseen. Moments after she vanished down the tunnel, though, Cemi heard the old woman’s anxious outcry. “You should not be here—” Her words were cut off by the sound of a hand striking flesh.
Suddenly, the new godling surged back into place, a shimmering presence that oozed out of the stone walls to create a mist of stone, hiding the entrance. As the entity covered the doorway, Cemi peered through the camouflage.
Far down the corridor, Analera sat against the wall, touching fingers to a bloodied lip. A muscular woman with a wolf pelt over her shoulders loomed over the cringing servant. “I go where I wish, and I wish to see what lies beneath the palace.”
“Forgive me, Magda.” Analera got to her feet. “But there’s nothing down here but dusty storage vaults.”
“I like dusty storage vaults.” Magda raised a threatening fist again, and the servant scuttled away with a furtive glance toward the hiding chamber.
Behind the godling’s stone illusion, the hawk guards rested hands on their weapons, ready to fight. The masking wall grew more substantial, forming a stone curtain. Cemi could barely see through, even when she pressed her face against it. She knew it looked completely solid from the other side.
The Hethrren leader stalked along, looking from side to side. She occasionally struck the walls with her club, as if she liked the sound of hard wood cracking against hard stone. As she approached the hidden vault, Cemi held her breath.
Analera ran back to the barbarian leader. “This way, Magda. I know these tunnels. Tell me what you’re looking for.”
“I’m looking for an excuse to kill you.”
“I-I will try not to give you an excuse. I can be useful. I served Emprir Daka and Empra Iluris. I lived my life in this palace, and I can show you all the fine chambers, the treasure rooms, even the gold vaults. Come with me!”
Magda paused, only a few steps away from the hidden chamber. “Why would you do that?”
“To keep you and the Hethrren happy.” The old servant’s voice trembled. “And if you are happy, then you won’t damage my beloved palace.”
“A good enough reason.” Magda pressed forward nevertheless.
The godling squirmed and solidified further. Cemi could feel the presence connected to her, and her vision penetrated between imaginary particles of stone. This deity must have been created by the people’s deep faith in Empra Iluris, but if the empra was unconscious and the people also prayed to Klovus and his Serepol godling, how much longer would they strengthen Iluris? How would the new godling remain strong?
Cemi’s faith remained intact, though.
Scowling, Magda strode past their hiding place, looking at the torches on the walls. Analera tagged along, trying to distract the barbarian leader, but Magda paused as if she detected something. Her brow furrowed, and she sniffed the air. “I smell fish. I smell sweaty bodies.”
Analera said, “I have not bathed yet this week. And you … you have a certain musk of exertion.”
“I smell like a woman who is not afraid to work or fight.” Magda faced the illusory wall, standing only a few feet from Cemi on the other side of the camouflage.
Cemi couldn’t breathe, and all of the hawk guards froze, making no jingle of armor or scrape of metal.
“Something isn’t right.” The Hethrren leader squinted. “There should be a room here.”
“But it is solid stone, as you can see,” Analera said.
Magda pressed the flat of her hand against the camouflage wall. The godling tensed, pushed back, but the woman pressed harder. The field rippled, and the big woman’s expression brightened. “This stone is not real! Is it magic? What are you hiding in here?”
The godling turned into a kind of slurry, as if dissolving, and Magda pushed her way through, poking her head into the chamber. Cemi skittered back. The hawk guards raised their weapons and closed ranks to protect Iluris.
They knew the Hethrren did not worship the godlings. Cemi had no idea what the barbarians actually believed, but this partially formed godling, this invisible protector, did not stand against Magda.
As if pushing her body through a rushing current, the woman thrust herself into the vault. Captani Vos placed Cemi behind him and stood with his sword drawn, vowing to die to protect her. But she didn’t want him to die. The hawk guards stood together, strong enough to kill even a fierce barbarian warrior, but Magda made no threatening move. She just looked at all of them crouched there, her face filled with curiosity. Then she let out a loud guffaw.
The godling sprang away from the doorway like a snapped thread. It coiled and curled like a presence of vapors along the stone, still there, still ready, but watching. Why didn’t the entity just kill her in the same way it had smashed the assassins who tried to kill Empra Iluris?
Magda was most interested in the pale woman stretched out on the pallet. “Oh ho! Is that the missing empra? Klovus told me she was injured. He thinks she is worthless.” She snorted. “And yet he is afraid of her. Why would he be afraid of … that?” She grimaced at the catatonic body.
Vos said defiantly, “The empra will awaken and lead Ishara again.”
Magda was unimpressed. “Keep hiding here, little chipmunks. What do I care about you? Your empra is weak and powerless.” She laughed again. “But the fact of her disappearance drives Klovus mad with fear. I like it when he is afraid, and I like to know you are hiding here.”
The hawk guards could have swarmed Magda, but they held their defensive positions. No longer interested in them, the barbarian woman lurched back into the tunnels, where she grabbed Analera’s scrawny arm. “Show me what else is down here. You mentioned treasure vaults.”
They strode off. Cemi and Vos looked at each other in disbelief, trying to understand what had just happened.
84
WHILE Lord Bahlen’s construction work took on a more frantic pace in the ancient ruins, Shadri convinced Thon to join her so they could uncover and solve wreth mysteries.
Broken stone had been excavated from the collapsed structures and used to shore up the defensive wall near the main gates, though peripheral sections showed intermittent gaps. Intact buildings had been cleared and reinforced, then converted to military headquarters, storehouses, and shelters for refugees who might rush there for protection.
Many of Bahlen’s people had fought at Lake Bakal, and they knew what they were up against. His soldiers, carpenters, and stonemasons redoubled their efforts to shore up the city’s defenses, sure that ruthless frostwreth armies might attack any day. But Mayor Cleff and many of his volunteer soldiers from Yanton had returned to their identities as farmers, carpenters, and woodcutters. The mayor had dispatched cartloads of supplies for the work crews, and some villagers even took up residence in the long-empty city.
Leaving Elliel with the laborers at the crumbling eastern wall, Shadri and Thon went to the intriguing collapsed crater. At one time the sinkhole might have been a dipping well in the center of a plaza, but a void had appeared beneath, as if something ate away at the source. The ground around the well had slumped down, but there was much more beneath—she could tell.
This time, they brought along a rope taken from one of the construction crews. Standing on the edge of the sloping crater, Shadri peered down at the intriguing hole at the bottom, which led deeper underground. She glanced at Thon. “When I showed this to you before, you said that there might be a magical wellspring in that hole, a source of power for the wreths.”
Thon touched his lower lip. “Yes, but I wonder how I would know that information. I agree that something interesting must be down there.”
Shadri reached into the foldpocket of her long skirts and withdrew her treasures. “I’ve never been very good with a flint and steel, but in my pack I had a candle and three sulfur matches.” She held them
up. “Down there in the dark, I can light my way and explore.”
The buckled flagstones were overgrown with weeds, and clinging vines crawled up from the mysterious pit. Around the edge of the crater, the ornamental trees were stunted, but the roots ran deep. Shadri tugged on a trunk to make sure the tree was firmly anchored. “I want to know what’s in there.” She tied the rope around the tree. “I’m climbing down. You can come with me.” She yanked the knot. “Do you think there’s magic here? Maybe you can use the source to defeat the frostwreths?”
“I want answers, as you do, scholar girl. I can sense the power and the history here.” His sapphire eyes glittered. His lips formed a thin smile. “Maybe the magic is strong enough to restore my own memories, or at least offer a clue to my past.”
“If you really turn out to be Kur, then you could solve our problems.”
He sighed. “If gods could solve problems so easily, there would be no problems.” Thon looked at his hands, brushed his fingers through his dark hair. “Do you truly think I may be a god?”
She added with wry humor, “If you were merely a wreth shoemaker, no one would have erased your memory and sealed you beneath Mount Vada.”
She braced her feet on the slanted flagstones and tugged on the rope. The long coil snaked downward and dropped into the black hole at the bottom of the crater. Shadri felt suddenly uncertain. “Do you think it’s dangerous down there?”
“I think it is unknown.”
“I like to explore the unknown.” Holding the rope, she eased herself down, placing her feet on the uncertain flagstones, backing one step, then another. “Are you going to follow me?”
Thon looked toward the distant wall of the city and the main gates. Something had caught his interest, as if he heard something.
Just then battle horns sounded in the east, outside the city wall, accompanied by raucous shouts.
“Someone is coming,” Thon said. “I sense danger … but it is not the frostwreths.”
* * *
After the victory at Lake Bakal, Elliel was prepared to face the frostwreths again, but she did not expect an attack to come along the road from Osterra.
Working at the main eastern gate of the restored wall, Elliel and her crew stepped aside as a surge of frantic people came down the road from Yanton begging for sanctuary. As the sun set, families guided mule carts, men rode old plow horses, mothers herded their children along the road. “An army is coming!”
Lord Bahlen rode up on his white horse to meet the first lines of refugees. “What do you mean an army? Which army?”
“They bear the rising sun of Osterra. And Commonwealth banners.”
Brushing herself off, Elliel stepped up to a harried-looking mother. “King Kollanan requested Commonwealth troops to help us against the frostwreths. These must be the soldiers he asked for!” She allowed herself a relieved smile, though she couldn’t believe it. “Why are you frightened?”
“They are not allies! They’re burning the fields! They’ve killed dozens already, and they keep marching. They set fire to Yanton!”
Mixed among the groups of fleeing people, Mayor Cleff came forward, more harried than usual and his grin was gone. “I tried to get the townspeople out, but the army rode in so fast! They just started throwing torches. They even cut down some of my people with their swords.”
The news created an uproar. Workers at the wall dropped their tools. A man on a high scaffold pointed urgently at smoke rising in the east. “That could be my farm! My fields!”
The refugees flowed through the open gates. The mayor urged them ahead of him, pushing them as fast as they could go. “We need shelter here. That was what we planned, my lord. They are destroying the entire village!”
Appalled, Bahlen stared at the rushing refugees. “Why would an army from Osterra burn our villages? What is the konag thinking?”
Cleff looked up at him, his mouth open. “I did not discuss politics or diplomacy, my lord! I just got my people away.”
Elliel felt a heavy lump in her chest, remembering Kollanan’s defiant letter. She knew that the capricious Konag Mandan was under Utho’s influence. Utho could twist things to force an issue—as he had done when erasing her memory and sending her out as a tattooed pariah, just so that he could keep hiding his secrets with Lord Cade.
As the refugees rushed into the walled ancient city, Bahlen shouted for the work crews to take up arms. They raced back to their campsites to gather armor, swords, shields, many of which were still stained or battered from Lake Bakal. Others scrounged weapons of their own or used construction tools and staffs.
Approaching battle horns sounded as the invading army marched forward, and even more villagers hurried into the wreth ruins. Mayor Cleff and the work crews guided them to shelter. Fires blossomed in the nearby fields and homesteads. Bahlen rallied his army to form ranks outside the reconstructed wall, but the ruins had vulnerabilities where the wall had not yet been repaired.
Before long, a haughty rider galloped down the road wearing a blue cape and jerkin embroidered with the rising sun of Osterra. He nearly trampled some of the refugees on the road. Sweaty and arrogant, the man halted a fair distance from the city walls and shouted out into the gathering twilight, “We come from Convera under orders from Konag Mandan. Because your King Kollanan has defied a lawful decree, the konag has commanded that the town of Yanton be eradicated as punishment. You may surrender, or you may die. The army of Lord Cade is on its way.” The rider wheeled his horse about and galloped back down the road to rejoin his ranks.
When she heard Cade’s name, Elliel’s heart turned to ice. That man’s vile actions had set in motion a cascade of events that nearly destroyed her. But Elliel had survived. She was a Brava again.
Bahlen frantically dispatched a rider to gallop back to Fellstaff and inform King Kollanan. Then, as the fighters scrambled to take up defensive positions on the city walls, Elliel clamped the golden cuff of her ramer around her wrist.
85
WHEN darkness set in over the Utauk heart camp, Penda found it impossible to get comfortable with her persistent cramps. Seeing the signs, Shella din Orr issued instructions to prepare for the impending birth. Thick layers of blankets were spread on the ground with stacked pillows for support. Hale doted beside her, tucking a blanket around her as if she were an invalid. Penda found his ministrations both endearing and annoyingly frequent.
“I’m not helpless, Father.” She propped herself up so she could watch the bustling firelit camp. “You always talk about how Utauk women ride their horses until the last moment, then dismount, have their babies, wrap them up, and ride onward.”
Hale snorted. “Cra, maybe that is true for some Utauk women, but you are my daughter and you are special.”
“Yes, I am.” She wrapped both hands around her belly and winced as her abdominal muscles squeezed. The contractions were persistent, stronger, and more regular. She could no longer dismiss them as false alarms. The baby would indeed come soon. Maybe tomorrow … maybe even tonight.
He dithered over her. “I remember when your mother gave birth to you. It was one of the most terrifying and wonderful nights of my life.”
“I will keep that in mind,” Penda said through clenched teeth. She had carried this baby for months, felt it growing, at first a bright spark that caused turbulence in her mood, making her prone to weeping and unbound joy. Now she let out a hiss and hunched forward. “Cra, this hurts!”
Adan had been with her throughout the journey, supporting her, adoring her and the child that was to come. But in the last two months, with so many traumatic things happening in the three kingdoms, the baby had become more of a burden for Penda to carry. Simply walking across the room or riding a horse was a challenge. She was anxious to be a mother instead of a pregnant woman.
Three days ago she had dispatched Xar with a message tied to his leg, and by now even the distractible ska should have flown back to Bannriya Castle. Her husband would be on his way, if he could.<
br />
“Ride swiftly, my Starfall! Ride swiftly.”
The heart camp had stopped in a sheltered valley in the northern hills of Suderra. No known roads led here, only the blue-poppy paths used by Utauks. Shella claimed this was one of her favorite places, a spot where she had camped for many years in a row, and they would stay for several days. In no hurry to move, the old woman was glad to receive traveling Utauks who came to the same place.
The heart camp was not a large convocation of families as the recent gatherings had been, but it was still a place of joy with many tents and wagons, where close family members reunited with distant relatives. Penda enjoyed the music and fellowship; Hale enjoyed the food.
As the labor spasms faded, for now, she drew a circle around her heart, then placed her palm against her chest, concentrating, trying to locate Xar through the heart link. She could sense her green ska coming closer, guiding her husband here to the heart camp. She smiled as she leaned back against her pillows and looked up at the dark, open sky.
Suddenly the camp skas set up a shrieking clamor and took wing, hissing, clicking. Some had just wandered back home from their panicked flight a week earlier, and they remained jittery. Annoyed Utauk owners called after the reptile birds, while others stood at the edge of the large bonfire and looked upward.
Their shouts were filled with alarm as they pointed up at the sky.
Against the deepening twilight, Penda spotted a black shape cruising overhead, an enormous reptilian form with huge angular wings like sails made of stretched skin. Her heart stuttered in her chest. The Utauks ran about the camp snatching burning brands from the bonfire, yelling as if they could scare the monster away.
The dragon eclipsed the moon as it cruised above the treetops, pounding its wings, arching its sinuous neck. Penda had seen such a monster before, out in the desert with the sandwreths. This one circled directly above the Utauk camp, and with all their wagons, horses, and bonfires, they could not possibly hide.
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