Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (45 page)

I have seen things
, she continued.
I have information that I think would be of value to those who wanted to abuse it. I should have realized sooner that I was putting myself in danger, but I…well, I was distracted. I propose that what we think of next is our escape
.

Our escape?
replied Mouse. This woman was as much guile as she was surprise. Cautious to her core, Mouse didn’t fall into
like
with people, though she felt a curious tugging of respect toward this daring stranger.

Yes, our escape, Mouse. For I do not think I could do any of this alone and I don’t need my gifts to tell me that you are as doomed as I. That look of creeping death, I saw it on your face in my master’s smoking tower
. Suddenly, Morigan remembered Thackery, and she swallowed before she could force the questions from herself.
There was an old man; I believe this Sorren had come for him. They have an ancient grudge. Did the nekromancer succeed? Or does my master, the old man, live? Please, what do you remember? Think back. Think as hard as you can. I need to know if he has survived
.

Mouse fought to recall the incidents in Eod. While under the control of Sorren, her field of view was limited to forward sight only, and she hadn’t seen much. When the nekromancer was finished with his gruesome surgery on that unfortunate elderly woman, he wiped off his hands and doled out metal amulets—as plain as coins on a chain—to each member of his shadowy company. The talismans came with a warning that if they lost the amulets, they lost their lives. After dressing their bomb, they left the
inn and took several carriages across town to the breathtakingly cultivated streets of King’s Crown, where the beauty of the neighborhood rattled the bars of even Mouse’s dismal prison. Only for a speck, however, for then the Raven’s bloody orchestrations commenced. Thule—yes, that was his name—was called from his tower by the woman who was now an instrument of war. Safe and smug in the alley behind the tower, the Raven smiled as the old man ran out and took the bait, while they filtered into the sorcerer’s sanctum with no more than a tingle of reproach from the wards. Mouse didn’t see much from then on, only heard the Raven’s quiet whispers as he channeled his voice into his puppet. Similar to when he was absent in the afternoons, his hold on her was weaker when his Will was split between more than one person.

Time is up, dear Uncle
, the nekromancer had said.

Once proclaimed, there was a tremendous explosion that creaked the walls of the tower; heat licked her back and smoke clotted her vision. Her eyes stung and her sight became a smear, though she detected sounds of battle and hints of a reddish fighter causing mayhem among the men. The dead man left her for a speck and then returned, coughing—unusual for him—and suddenly Sorren was screaming for
the bitch to be brained
. Hope soared in her, though it was crushed momentarily when the dead man ushered her from the tower. A bit of shouting for their group to halt was heard, then the slicing of swords and gurgling of cried deaths. Another skycarriage awaited them, to take them to the one left in the desert. What she saw of Eod last was a pillar of smoke rising from its white majesty, like a signal along the mountains to herald war, which this truly would be. Through all these remembrances, Mouse searched for any clue regarding the fate of the old man, yet returned with nothing.

I don’t know if anything could have survived the amount of witchpowder they packed that poor corpse-mule with. I am sorry, Morigan
.

The Wolf in Morigan allowed her to devour the news of Thackery’s death with cold compassion. The poetry of life lay in death, and that was an order to be revered even if the heart cried at loss. Later she would grieve, once the hunt was over and she had clawed her way to freedom. Then she and Caenith could sing to the moon together, and bury whatever piece of Thackery’s memory they could find beneath Mifanwae’s stones.

Morigan, are you sad? Don’t be. We have the living to think about, namely ourselves
, reminded Mouse.

I am angry, not sad. And my anger can wait
.

Good
, said Mouse.
I have learned a few things that might help us. Listen and see what you can make of my observations. The nekromancer’s power has limits; the more he affects, the weaker the hold. Furthermore, it ebbs if he is away for too long, like a drug that simply loses effect when it cannot be administered. And he is tired after all the activity in Eod, which is why I’ve been bound to you in plain old iron
.

This isn’t plain old iron
, Morigan disagreed.
It has done something to my magik; otherwise, I could reach into the minds of every man in this room and rip out what we need to know to survive
.

Mouse frowned.
Ah, that would make sense. I remember him whining about how his power didn’t work so effectively on you. We’ve been chained up in feliron, I suppose. It’s what the Council of the Wise bind naughty sorcerers in who are awaiting execution. Still, the fact that you remain able to “magik” is certainly our greatest advantage once we get these chains off
.

Quietly as a young rogue, Morigan tested her restraints; they were tight enough to whiten her hands and surely impossible to contort oneself through.

No, that won’t work
, commented Mouse, noting Morigan’s sly movement.
I’ve tried and I can slither from chains like a greased snake. We don’t need a pick, either; we just need someone to let us out of them. The dead man might do it. I almost had the screws in him earlier before Sorren shut my trap for good. I don’t know what the history is between those two, but it involves a woman named Lenora. The dead man was in love with her, and the madman was, too, I believe. As unlikely as it is, he is the only of our captors to show signs of consideration. I wasn’t aware that the reborn could feel, but he surely does. He feels for this Lenora, the woman I bear a striking resemblance to. He doesn’t remember her, not as he should for a woman he loved. I think I could twist him to help if only I knew the right words to say to him
.

The bees were sparking their stingers against Morigan’s skull, eager as caged hounds to be released. They could smell delicious nectar wafting from the dead man: pheromones of sorrow and tragedy. However, she couldn’t let them out if she wanted to. Not unless…

If I can touch him, as I am touching you, I can get into his head
, realized Morigan.
I don’t know if it will be enough to unlock his secrets, but I shall try. I shall hammer that lock with everything I have
.

Well, I’ll be fuked! I think we have a fool’s hope!
Mouse laughed, but only in the space that she and Morigan could hear.

It seems that we do
, replied Morigan.

The vessel rocked its way through the night. By dawn it would arrive in Menos. Without the smallest glance to each other, deadpan to their captors, the women wisely used every sand they were given to conspire. As light stung their tired eyes, and the skycarriage flew toward a new gloom—the black cloud of Menos—the captives readied themselves for the moment when they would convince the dead man to set them free. Even then, as the darkness of Menos’s pollution wrapped the skycarriage, he glanced to the two prisoners with mournful regret, and Morigan knew he could be broken.

VI

At the edge of Kor’Khul, on the border between greenness and sand, Magnus told his soldiers the cause of their march. Shining and proud, the silver men assembled for the morning on the grasslands outside Meadowvale. Up and down the lines, his mare, Brigada, bolted like black lightning, and the king’s voice, bolstered by sorcery, echoed like the thunder that followed.

Remember your oaths, men and women of the Silver Watch!
he declared.
This is the time that all debts to your kingdom are repaid. I must tell you the truth of our journey, and what you have committed yourselves to do. My brother has gone mad! (No gasps from the men’s cold faces, only frowns.) We ride south to see if he can be cleansed of his madness. If not, then we shall return him to Eod in chains of feliron. Every courage, ever honor is needed for this fight, and if you think that you are short on either, cast yourself from the Watch, from Eod, and never return. For the weak do not tread onward. The weak are not the cloth from which we cut the heroes of tomorrow. And against Brutus, we can have only heroes. Men and women with swords and even the smallest fear will not be
enough: they will be ghosts before the battle is won. Ask yourself, are you heroes or are you spirits to be forgotten? Declare yourself now and ride onward, or ride back. The choice belongs to you
.

He stirred Brigada and plunged into Meadowvale. Come the counting of heads that night, not a single soldier had left their legions. With providence, a thousand warriors of stone wills could be enough to triumph against Brutus.

Meadowvale was glorious in the spring. It was a brocade of green fields and threading rivers ruled by weary, irregular hillocks, like ruined castles grown over with moss. Once, in an age that only the kings had seen, this was a land of fire and ash. Then, when the great inferno swept these vales no more and the land had cooled, life found the volcanic sediment to be a ripe bosom. As the king’s legions moved south, the land welcomed them with arms of verdant beauty. The line of horses wound through great dales of pine and shaggy firs, trees so old that the king could hardly remember when they were saplings. In the trees sang throaty birds, and in the bushes rustled hearty animals for the Watchmen to hunt at night. Thus, the army’s campfires were always satisfying and cheery, even if it was known by now that this was a march of war.

One night as they camped among the elders of the weald, these trees as imposing as a giant’s emerald feet, the king found himself alone on a solitary rock. The army had covered much ground in a fortnight and they were around a day’s journey from the Valley of Fair Winds. The king wondered how much the valley had changed in two or three hundred years. He’d last been through those lands with Lila, while on a retreat to the homesteads of Brackenmire, which lay beyond the valley. A realm of bogs and moss-bearded trees might seem a melancholy place for an escape, though he knew the secret pockets of loveliness that an avid or ancient explorer could find in Brackenmire—the pools where the moon shone clear through the trees and firebugs flew in the air like clouds of starlight. When this war with his brother was over, he would take Lila there again, and they could rise and sleep however it pleased them: making love, fishing, and living without responsibility.

Engrossed in the night, he did not hear his hammer approach. A tall, broad-shouldered warrior was suddenly in front of him, shaking him from his reverie. If a man could be an armament, then the hammer of the king was nearest to such a creation. With his chipped brown face and blue-steel eyes
as cruel as a sword’s edge, his curly beard, and his hairline branched with scars like the scuffs on a favored shield, he was all metal and mettle. His nose had been broken so often that its original shape was unknown, though it had settled into a ridged formation that was flat, if handsome enough. When he spoke, it was with a gruff indifference, as though the tongue of man was foreign to him. This was true twice over, for Magnus had found him in the Salt Forests of the West, where men spoke as he and his brother once did: in clucking, hoots, and burbles. And it was true because the hammer was more comfortable with the language of war, not words.

“My King,” the hammer said, bowing.

Magnus nodded to a spot beside himself on the fuzzy rock. During the occasions where he and his hammer were alone or an importance need be stressed, Magnus addressed the warrior by his tribal name, not the more colloquial “Erik” that his fellows preferred.

“Sit, Erithitek,” he suggested.

The hammer declined the offer. “No thank you, my King. I am here to watch and protect. Not to sit.”

“You should take whatever solaces the fates bless us with, my friend. Few comforts are likely to be on the road ahead. At our pace, my brother’s kingdom is less than a fortnight away. I do not know what awaits us there.”

After considering the king’s words, the hammer clanked his way onto the rock. Even though most of the army could be found around the campfires and stripped of their plate and arms, Erik was never at ease, and the king could count on one hand the number of times that he had seen the man out of uniform. Magnus suspected that the hammer’s rest in this moment was really just another executed command: to
relax
. At least the man’s helmet was off, if tied by its chinstraps to his baldric, should an enemy suddenly appear. On the contrary, the king was quite exposed, wearing but mail hose and naked to the waist; a vulnerability that surely made his hammer anxious.

“A beautiful night,” noted the king.

“Yes. The air smells…different.”

“Indeed, that is probably the perfume of the flowered terraces that lie past the woods. Stacked like potted gardens on shelves of rock and planted there by Mother Geadhain herself. Their beauty will warm even your stony heart, my friend. I have not seen them since the queen and I last had a
moment to ourselves. That feels so long ago. You weren’t even a thought in your mother’s belly then.” King Magnus gave a ringing clap to his companion’s metal shoulder. “I am glad that you will see the Valley of Fair Winds, as it is a wonder not to be missed. At times, I feel like I have failed in my promise to show you this world. Peace does not require much travel, and many of your days have been spent in Eod and not abroad. Funny, then, how it is war that ultimately has gotten your feet to wander.”