Bones of the Empire (49 page)

From the other side of the group, Turess’s face twitched near his eyes, though he said nothing. The only action he took was to rub at his bracelet.

The kneeling Turessian turned his gaze on Rishad, and his features twisted into an almost inhuman smile. “Good day, Rishad. I wondered where you went. That’s three times my children went missing and turned on me. I think you can see in your mind what happened to Ilarra.”

Rishad’s smirk faded abruptly and he lowered his eyes.

“Working with the beasts,” Dorralt continued through the other man’s mouth, sweeping his gaze across the army. He stopped when he got to Turess, but returned his attention to Rishad. “I would have expected more of you…and them. This paltry army is all you could muster? I give you credit for the lycanthropes, but the rest is at best ragtag. Even my brother’s presence is at most a distraction.”

Feanne snarled at the Turessians, getting a decent flinch from the three who were not possessed.

But Dorralt openly laughed at her before waving dismissively at her and turning to Estin. “I thought we killed you already? Why do you keep showing up where I am trying to work, wildling? The fox is an imbecile, that I understand, but you are clever. Clever creatures do not attempt to sneak into a foe’s den. Are you serving my brother now? I had thought you to be past being someone’s slave, but that is the only explanation I can see…”

Estin brought as much magic to bear as he could manage, attempting to strike down the body that Dorralt inhabited. As he did, the man brought up his hand and all of the voices in Estin’s mind vanished. His whole body abruptly felt heavier, and his mind buzzed painfully.

“Stop that,” Dorralt warned, giggling madly. “I may be at a disadvantage in this puppet, having already been weakened by Rishad. However, that is not enough to completely stop me, Estin. I can feel Turess trying to crush what little power I can still reach, but it will take him precious seconds longer than you have left to live. I can strike you down right now…you or your whore. You aren’t who I want, though. One problem at a time.”

Fighting down the urge to leap at the man and claw him, Estin looked around frantically. No one seemed sure what to do, including the werewolves. Even Turess appeared to be straining at some magic Estin could not decipher, though there were no effects he could see from it.

“Arella,” Rishad called out, and one of the werewolves came forward, her clawed hands still covered in blood. “Would you be so kind as to demonstrate that I am not holding anything back from my old master?”

Growling, Arella leaped at Dorralt, swiping her claws across his body. He made no effort to move, but when her claws tore open his robes, the wounds instantly began festering, causing Dorralt to look down at his stomach. Instead of healing, the wounds continued to grow worse, as though infection were occurring at an incredible rate.

After several seconds, Dorralt put a gloved hand to the middle of the cuts, trying to keep his intestines in. “You have figured out a few things since we spoke last,” Dorralt said, frowning. He swept his other hand over his stomach and the wounds closed. “You cannot kill me with tricks, Rishad. At best, you can kill this shell. I doubt he would appreciate dying like that. I take it you have not shared the specifics of how you did that with the others?”

“Have I ever been that kind of fool?” Rishad asked, pointedly ignoring Estin’s glare. “Only a few of us know. Turess has what he needs to figure it out, but I won’t offer anyone the tools to kill me unless you give me no other choice. End this war and we can keep it hidden from the masses.”

Unlike Dorralt, the remaining Turessians—including the one pinned under a werewolf—looked horrified. They stared at Dorralt’s side, where the wounds had failed to close on their own. For all the bravado Estin had seen from the Turessians, apparently knowing they could be truly hurt was enough to shake them.

“Then you are still a fool, Rishad,” Dorralt noted dryly. “I already see the rest of your army and the traps you are attempting to lay. I am so truly sorry, Rishad. Neither of us have a choice anymore. My plans should have spared us all, but you have taken that choice from me.”

Abruptly, all four Turessians collapsed and began decaying rapidly at the same time Estin felt his magic return.

Nearby, Turess collapsed, clutching at his head. Linn and several others ran to check on him.

A second later, Arella screamed and fell beside them, clutching her chest. Rishad and Estin ran to her, but she was choking, coughing up blood as her tongue swelled to fill her wolfish jaw. Without hesitation, Rishad jammed his hand into her mouth, keeping her from choking on her tongue. In doing so, Arella’s fangs ripped his glove apart, shredding the flesh beneath.

“What is it?” Estin asked, forcing Arella to lie down, with Rishad’s help. Her skin was burning and her heart pounded so hard that Estin could feel her pulse by touching any part of her flesh. He tried to ignore the blood pouring from Rishad’s hand, given he was doing little more than flinching each time Arella’s spasms caused her to bite him. “What is this?”

“I have no—” Rishad clenched his jaw. Then, shaking his head, he pulled away the top of his brown robe, where the necklace that kept Dorralt out of his mind hung. The metal steamed and flames licked at it, scorching Rishad’s skin. “This is tied to Arella. He’s attacking her through it. He was close enough to strike at me, and he’s using this to kill her.”

Shifting his sight to look at magic, Estin saw there was indeed a strong link between the necklace and Arella’s body. With her ability to regenerate and her slow aging, it had likely seemed smart at the time. Now, Estin had to think she had pushed her luck much too far. New energies wrapped around both the necklace and its tie to Arella, burning her from the inside out. Dorralt was using his own ties to Rishad to channel flames into Arella.

Putting his hand over the necklace, Estin tried to disrupt the new magic, but it was far stronger than he was. Almost immediately, a sensation like fire in his blood washed through him, cutting off his attempt. He gasped and blinked hard, trying to clear the fog that filled his head. It felt as though a horrible fever had just broken.

“I can fix this. Keep Arella stable,” Rishad said, pulling his hand free of Arella’s mouth. He gingerly lifted the necklace and held his other hand over it, despite the flames that burned right through his fingers and lit what was left of his glove aflame.

Obeying, Estin put his hands on Arella and poured what magic he could into her, cooling her body slightly. It would not be enough for long. Estin was already tired, and Dorralt’s spell was doing an incredible amount of damage to Arella, which he could not have kept up with even when fully rested. Despite her ability to heal herself and Estin’s efforts, her eyes had rolled back and she was barely breathing. The heat coming off her melted the snow all around them and made Estin’s pads feel as though they were blistering.

Estin split his attention between Arella and Rishad, waiting for the flash of magic he expected Rishad to use to stop Dorralt’s attack. Instead, a brittle crack made Estin jump slightly as Rishad broke his necklace and crushed it into a lump of metal. When he let go of the jewelry, pieces of fell away and Arella stopped convulsing, her breathing gradually returning to normal. Under Estin’s palmpads, Arella’s fur and skin were rapidly cooling.

“I thought…” Estin said, getting a sharp nod from Rishad.

“Dorralt can and will destroy or control me now, once his strength returns,” Rishad said calmly, smoothing his robe. “It has been an honor and a privilege, Estin. I don’t have time to call Turess over, so please tell him everything you are about to see and swear to me that when this is all done, we will have made a difference. I would tell him myself, but I know enough of Turess to think he will do something heroic that will cost us lives in the long run. For now, this is between us, at least until it is too late to change course.”

“I swear,” Estin said, sitting back on his feet. Arella rolled over and coughed up some more blood. “What can we do?”

Rishad and Arella met each other’s eyes, and Arella hung her head, seeming to grasp what had happened. With her talon-like claws, she knocked aside the remnants of the necklace. Snarling, she got up onto her hands and knees, letting one of her hands land in a pool of her own blood without apparently noticing. She slid over to Rishad, put her other hand to his face, and pressed her forehead to his as he closed his eyes.

“I promised him I would deal with it when this day came,” she said, closing her own eyes. With a deep-throated growl, she drove her already bloodied claws into Rishad’s chest, causing him to stiffen and gag. She yanked her hand out a moment later, and Rishad collapsed, as dead as any mortal would have been. His skin paled and turned grey as his extremities started to disintegrate. Still kneeling over him as he fell apart, Arella said, “This was the original plan if the amulet had not worked. I believe he had always known it would come to this. I had hoped for another way.”

Frantically, Estin looked at the others nearby. Both confusion and sadness clouded Feanne’s face as she stared at the pile of cloth and ash that had been Rishad. The soldiers had been far more concerned with cutting down the remaining zombies and had more or less ignored the entire exchange. Even Turess and Linn appeared ignorant of what had just happened, with Turess still clutching his head and Linn trying to help him up.

“Leave me,” Arella snarled, still without having reverted to her human form. The sharp rebuke startled Estin and also several soldiers, making them back away. Only Estin and Feanne did not budge. When Arella looked up again, it was not with anger, but sadness. She said quietly, “He was my friend. Please let me mourn him. Once we go, I must never look back or my pack will see me as weak.”

Estin whispered his apologies, got up, and went over to Feanne, who continued to watch Arella and the dust-covered robes lying in front of her. He took her hand, wincing as he closed his hand over hers and felt cool and sticky blood fill the space between his fingers.

“We aren’t asking her right now,” Estin said, tugging her arm to keep her moving when she hesitated.

“I have to know how she killed him and hurt Dorralt,” she whispered back, glancing over her shoulder at Arella. “I’ve torn into dozens of Turessians and never seen one act like that. I’ve ripped their chests open just like that and not one stayed down. I’m stronger than she is and have more magic…”

“It’s not about strength,” he answered, though he had no idea if Feanne was even listening. “There’s something else to it. We will ask once she’s recovered and not a minute sooner.”

“Why wait?”

“Are you losing your mind, Feanne? If I was lying dead out there, how would you react if someone walked up and asked you the easiest way to kill others like me?”

“I…I understand,” she replied softly, no longer looking back. She appeared genuinely ashamed for having even asked. “I’m sorry. I sometimes forget to think of Turess and Rishad as people and not as weapons.”

“The lack of fur?”

Feanne gave him an annoyed glare from the corner of her eyes. “They are Turessians. We have fought them for so long. I have trouble seeing them as anything but the enemy.”

They continued on in silence until they reached the rest of the caravan that followed the army. Falling in with them, they walked steadily northeast toward the temple, picking up the rest of the soldiers along the way. Arella was left behind, mostly at the overprotective urging of her fellow werewolves, standing watch in a wide circle around her. Even the werebears and dire wolves chose to come with the army, rather than stay with Arella. Once they were far behind, Estin heard the mourning cry of a wolf echo through the hills. There had been far more between Rishad and Arella than friendship, that much he knew from that cry.

The massive group marched well past the last of the twitching undead bodies and up into the next section of woods shortly before dawn. They continued until the sun was low again and the wood began to thin, hinting at an end to the cover the trees could provide. There, they found a secluded area that was reasonably defensible and began the task of rebuilding the camp and basic fortifications around it, as they had every time they traveled. The mood was somber and quiet, despite the day’s victory. Apparently, even those who did not know what had happened could feel the change in their leaders at having actually spoken to their true enemy.

If Estin had his way, the group would have marched on, since the undead army could—and likely would, given that Dorralt knew they were there—return, trapping them. He knew even with the small army at their disposal, there was no chance that everyone could keep going for another day or two without rest. He and Feanne would have hunkered down in the wilderness to rest only briefly and then run as long as they could, trying to get to the temple before anything else found them. The hundreds of others with them would cut their pace to about a quarter what they could have managed on their own. From what he heard whispered, their pace put them nearly two days from the temple…much too far to push on.