Bone Magic (11 page)

She could hear
swords clashing inside. They would be holding the undead at bay on
the stairs. She could hear people shouting, and children crying.
Beneath it all was a softer sound.

The crackling
of flames.

She looped the
first suspender through the door handles and pulled it tight, a
moment before something crashed against the doors from the inside,
jarring them open a couple of inches. Fervently hoping it was one
of the undead and not a villager who hadn't made it up the stairs,
she threw her shoulder against the doors, slammed them shut, pulled
the suspender tight, and tied a quick knot. There was another
crash, but the doors stayed shut while she tied another knot, then
pushed the other suspender through the handles and repeated the
process.

It wouldn't
take long for the corpses to try the windows. She looked around for
a weapon and found the axe that she had thrown, what seemed like a
very long time ago. She snatched up the axe and ran along the side
of the building.

An undead woman
was climbing through the first window. She had her head and
shoulders out, her hands on the windowsill, looking downward. The
back of her neck was exposed, and Tira swung hard, hearing the axe
head crunch through bone and flesh. The body fell back inside, and
a man threw his leg over the windowsill. He grabbed the side of the
window frame, and Tira chopped at his hand.

A village man
with blood all over his face came running from the back of the
temple. Tira thought he was undead, and was bringing the axe back
to swing at him when he grabbed the undead man by the foot and
heaved him back inside the temple.

At the next
window over, a man and a woman stood shoulder to shoulder, holding
the handle of a pitchfork. One of the undead was impaled on the
tines, hands stretched out trying to reach them, and they used the
body to block the window.

They didn't
have to hold the windows for long. The fire spread quickly, and
waves of heat came rolling out. The little hairs on the backs of
Tira's hands singed and crumbled away, and the undead stopped
trying to climb out.

She ran to the
back of the building, wondering how many people had paid the price
for her clever idea. To her intense relief she found the children
gathered around the old woman, who was lying flat on her back,
white-faced but seemingly unharmed.

Tira looked up
at the window in time to see Tam clamber out, clutching the
curtain, using it for a rope. The curtain gave way and he fell,
landing hard on his back. The curtain landed on top of him, the top
end in flames, and he flung it aside, slapping at his chest. His
eyebrows and eyelashes were gone, and his hair was badly singed,
but he grinned when he saw Tira. "Everyone made it out," he
said.

Something moved
in the window above him, and Tira ran to him, grabbed his arm, and
yanked him out of the way. A man dropped out of the window and
landed on the grass. He had a sword in his hand, and he was on
fire. The children screamed, and the old woman covered one little
girl's eyes.

The man lurched
to his feet and flailed at the air blindly with his sword. He
dropped to his knees, made one more wild cut at the air, and
toppled onto his face. The smell of roasting flesh filled the air,
turning Tira's stomach. She hefted her axe and moved past the
burning man, completing her circuit of the building.

There was a
soldier beside the temple, his hair on fire, facing a pair of
village women with knives. He had lost his sword, and they harried
him like wolves after a stag. When he faced one woman, the other
would dart in and deliver a small cut to an arm or leg. Tira left
them to it.

She walked
across the village square, looking for movement. If she met an
undead stranger, she decided, she would call for help. If it was a
villager, she would deal with it on her own. If she could spare
these people the experience of cutting apart a friend or a loved
one, she would.

The movement
when it came was so small that she almost missed it. A little form
came running across the grass toward her. For a time, Tira just
watched her come, her mind refusing to accept the evidence of her
eyes. It was Sari, her face blank, a triangular piece of glass
clenched in her fist. The glass had cut her fingers, but she didn't
bleed. She ran straight at Tira, bringing her arm up to strike.

Tira did her
best to keep herself between Sari and the temple while she did what
she had to do. She didn't want anyone to see it. When she was
finished, she dropped to her knees in the grass and vomited until
her stomach was empty.

The embers of
the temple were still glowing when Tira finished going over her
gear. Her bow had survived, but four arrows had broken. She snapped
the shafts off close to the head, put the arrowheads in her saddle
bags, and climbed into the saddle.

Tam approached.
He had tied a bandanna around his head to keep sweat out of his
eyes. His face was haggard and streaked with soot, but he gave her
a grim smile. "Going somewhere?"

She nodded.
"Remember that cart full of bodies? I think I'll go see where it
was headed."

"You'll get
yourself killed," he said.

Tira shrugged.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Sari projected on the
inside of her eyelids. She owed a debt to a little girl who had
trusted her. Someone was going to pay that debt, and pay in
blood.

"I have to
stay," Tam said.

She nodded.

"They need me
here," he said. There was a note of pleading in his voice, as if he
thought she didn't understand. "Half the town is gone."

"Don't be an
idiot, Tam. Of course you have to stay." They looked at each other
for a long moment. "Thank you," she said. "You can ride with me any
time." Then she booted the horse and headed out of the village on
the east road.

She camped that
night by a small stream in the grasslands. She wanted to keep
going, goaded by rage and afraid of the nightmares that awaited her
if she slept. But the horse needed rest, and riding a bad road in
the dark was a good way to break a horse's leg.

For dinner she
had nothing but some leftover jerky some trooper had left in the
bottom of one saddle bag. That gave her no reason for a fire, so
she gnawed on the strip of meat and swatted mosquitoes while the
sky grew dark and the first few stars appeared.

Hoofbeats
drummed on the road. She strung her bow, took up her quiver, and
crouched behind some low shrubs on a rise that gave her a good view
of the road. It was a lone rider coming from the west, and she
nocked an arrow just in case. Then she put the arrow away, stood,
and waved.

Tam reined in
his horse and waved back. He rode over to her and dismounted.

"I thought they
needed you at the village."

"It's a town,"
he said, and shrugged. "They know what they're doing there." His
teeth were a pale flash in the darkness as he smiled. "You, on the
other hand... I bet you rode away without packing any food." He
reached over to pat his bulging saddlebags. "Hungry?"

Her stomach
growled in reply, and she chuckled. "I'll make a fire."

"Did you raid
your mother's larder again?" she asked as he fried cubes of pork
some time later.

His face was
bleak as he answered. "This belonged to the Carpenters." The grim
note to his voice told her all she needed to know about what had
happened to them. "I brought everything that was going to spoil.
There aren't enough people in the village to eat everything."

It was midday
before they reached the palisade where Carmody and his men had
died. Tira murmured a prayer to Neris for their souls, along with
an apology for burning her temple to the ground. She supposed Neris
would understand.

"We're, what?
Three days behind the cart now?" Tira scratched her fingers through
her hair. It was greasy to the touch. She couldn't remember the
last time she'd had a proper bath. "We're moving a lot faster than
the cart is. If we're going twice as fast, we'll catch up in, let
me see... Three days? That's if the cart keeps going straight."

"Maybe it won't
be that hard," Tam said, his voice grim. "Maybe we'll catch up
sooner than that."

He was staring
down the road, and Tira followed his gaze. Several black specks
moved against the sky in the distance ahead of them. Birds, big
ones, and she only knew of one thing that would attract them in
large numbers.

Carrion.

It took most of
an hour to reach the remains of the cart. Someone had cut the
bodies of Carmody and his men into pieces, then piled firewood
under the cart and burned everything. It wasn't nearly enough wood
to reduce that many men to ash. There was more than enough left to
attract the vultures and ravens.

"Hey, look at
this," Tam called. He was kneeling beside a blackened skull a few
feet from the rest of the fire. "I think this is an arrow
wound."

Tira frowned.
No one had used a bow in the battle at the palisade.

"Look at this,"
Tam repeated. When Tira didn't move, he made an impatient gesture.
"Yes, I know it's disgusting, but come here and look."

She walked over
and squatted beside him, ready to give him the sharp edge of her
tongue for his insistence. Then she peered at the skull, and her
anger evaporated.

There was a
hole in the right temple, just beside the eye socket. A matching
hole decorated the left temple. Someone had put an arrow through
the side of this person's head.

"He blinded
him," Tam said. "I think this was the cart driver. Someone took out
both his eyes with one arrow."

Tira shook her
head. That was preposterous. No one was that good with a bow. It
had to be chance. A lucky shot.

"Remember the
arrow that landed in the fire?" Tam asked. That had been an awfully
good shot, as well. She nodded.

"I would really
like to know who's out there helping us," he said. He put the skull
down. "Well, what now?"

Tira had a
sneaking suspicion about the identity of their mysterious ally. She
was opening her mouth to tell Tam her idea when she saw movement in
the corner of her eye. She whirled, sliding the bow from her back,
then relaxed. It was Daisy, with the other mule trailing behind
her, ambling across the grass toward them.

"Well, old
girl, have you enjoyed your vacation? I'm going to put you back to
work, you know."

Daisy nuzzled
her, and she scratched the mule behind the ears. Tam dug an apple
out of his saddlebags and gave half to each mule, then set about
transferring their saddlebags to the mules. The horses had been
working hard, and every bit of weight removed would help.

"So, what
happened here, old girl? I suppose you saw everything?"

Daisy ignored
her, of course, laying her ears back to show her displeasure as Tam
tied the saddle bags in place.

"It looks like
we're ready to go," Tam said. "Do we know where we're going?"

Tira shrugged.
"Let's keep following the road. We know the bodies were headed
east."

"Yes, but where
were they going?"

"How should I
know?" she snapped.

"Well," said
Tam, "I've been thinking about that. I think the necromancer is
wherever the children were being taken. That means somewhere on the
other side of the river."

Tira thought
about it. "Maybe," she said. She gestured at the burned remains of
the cart. "Bodies are best when they're fresh, though." She thought
of the town on the edge of the forest, with smoke rising above the
walls. "And they seem to be generating a lot of dead bodies all of
a sudden. I wonder if the necromancer has come to this side of the
river to start the second phase of his plan."

Tam scratched
his head. "If you're right, then we have the same problem as
before. We have no idea where we're going."

"Sure we do,"
said Tira. She gestured down the road. "We're going east."

"Yes, but then
what?"

She shrugged.
"Maybe we'll find some more bodies we can follow."

They rode east.
In late afternoon the grasslands gave way to forest. Soon after,
they saw a column of smoke rising to the south. When a broad path
appeared leading south through the trees, they followed it. They
came to a valley with a small lake and a collection of dilapidated
stone buildings. Someone had built a bonfire on open ground in the
middle of the little settlement, and smoke still rose from the
embers.

"What is this
place?" said Tam.

Tira peered
around. There was no sign of life, or of recent occupation. Trees
as tall as a man sprouted close against the walls of the buildings,
and doors hung open or were missing completely. The place was long
abandoned. Some of the buildings might have been cottages or small
storehouses. One building, though, dominated the rest. Built of
dark red stone, it stood a story and a half tall and could have
held a hundred or more people with ease. On either side of the main
entrance was a stylized carving of a man's face, one face laughing,
the other face frowning. It was the symbol of the god Zef.

"I think this
was some sort of monastery," she said. "A place for the monks to
get away from worldly distractions."

Tam swung down
from the saddle and approached the remains of the fire. "I see
bones," he said. "They look human."

Tira thought of
the trail they had taken from the road, which had been
well-traveled and free of obstruction. The monastery looked
abandoned, but someone had been coming here pretty regularly. "Is
this our necromancer's secret lair?" she wondered aloud.

Tam put a hand
to the hilt of his sword, looking around nervously. Tira wasn't too
concerned, though. Judging by the size of the fire, the blaze would
have been visible for miles, hardly the action of a secretive
sorcerer. She was pretty sure the necromancer was no longer in
residence. Still, she kept a hand on the hilt of her sword as she
walked up the steps and into the main building with Tam on her
heels.