Path of Bones (15 page)

This was worse.  Much worse.  The shadows of the Chul made them look like ghosts, too far for him to see or hear clearly.  He kept waiting for another keening war-cry to cut through the air like a soiled knife. 

He checked the crossbow, the oil, the flint and steel he’d use to light it, the quarrels, the axe, Ijanna’s weapons.  She sat there, her breaths growing slower by the moment.

“
Are you all right?” he asked her.  It was a stupid question, but he needed to say something.

She looked at him.  Her eyes shone scarlet in the darkness. 

“Are
you
?” she asked.

Kath held her gaze for as long as he could, his heart hammering.  At last he looked away. 

“No,” he said.  “No, I’m not.”

“
We’re going to be all right,” she said.  “These Chul don’t know what they’re up against.”

Kath nodded.  He knew she was just trying to make him feel better, but he appreciated the effort. 

“I’ll do my best,” he said.

“
I know,” she said.  “That’s all we can do.”  She glimpsed at the rift.  “How close are they?”

The Chul were moving slow, just at the edge of the trees. 

“They’ll be here any time,” he said.  “They’re waiting.”

“
They’ll try to outlast us,” she said.  “The Skull of the Moon makes it so they don’t have to sleep.  We need to stay awake.”

“
I think we’re out of coffee,” Kath said with a nervous laugh. 

“
Then we’ll talk,” she said.  “We just need to keep sharp.”

“
Ok,” Kath nodded.  They looked out through the rocks.  Gritty wind came at them, and the plains between the rift and the distant and dead trees where the Chul waited were filled with clouds of sand and dark dust.  “Let’s talk.”

“
I need you to keep an open mind,” Ijanna said after a moment.  “I’ve told you about the Veil,” she said, “but in order to understand what’s happening there are things you need to know about Carastena Vlagoth…and about me.”

Kath didn’t like the sound of that. 

“Are you sure this is the right time?” he asked.

“
It’s as good a time as any,” she said.

“
All right,” Kath said with a nod.

“
First,” she said, “the Chul.  Like I said, I’ve encountered them before.  It was a few years ago...before the camps.”

Kath knew she meant the death camps, where rebellious Dawn Knights had tortured and killed hundreds of Bloodspeakers.  His mother Illistra had been a victim of those camps, killed after a Bloodspeaker named Malath had seduced her and stolen her away from her family.  The pain of her death was three years old, yet it still felt fresh. 

Ijanna, too, had been in those camps.  So far as Kath knew she was the only one who’d escaped.

“
Before the camps?” he said.  “I thought you said the Chul have only been hunting you for a year?”

“
They only learned I’d survived the camps a little over a year ago…myself and a few others.  Our feud is older than that.   You see, Kath…I’ve been on this quest before.”

He had to think on that. 

“You mean seeking out the other Skullborn?” he asked.

“
Yes.”  Ijanna brushed a strand of hair from her face.  They watched the unmoving shadows in the distance.  “The Witch Mother, leader of the Chul, is one of the Skullborn,” Ijanna said.  Kath looked at her, but Ijanna kept her eyes straight ahead.  “There are only three of us.  We share the gift of a limitless supply of magic in our blood, and we know when we’re close to the others.  We’re physically almost identical.”

“
Like…triplets?” Kath asked.  “How is that possible?  Are you sisters?”

“
After a fashion.  All three of us are meant to fulfill a purpose.  We share the same destiny, even if none of us want it.  I learned of the Witch Mother’s identity and sought her out.  I knew about the Chul even then, but I was hoping our connection would allow me to gain audience with her...and I was right.  The Chul escorted me to their queen, who hid in the depths of the Ravenwood.  She knew who I was without understanding how, just as I knew her, and we were both aware of the existence of the third Skullborn even though neither of us had met her or even knew who she was.”

Kath felt a lump in his throat.  Ijanna had been born of evil magic.  She was the prisoner of a cursed birth.

“What happened when you met with the Witch Mother?” he asked.

Ijanna was shaking.  A cold wind ripped at them, this time carrying the stench of the Chul – blood and rot, intestines and sweat.  The smell of hunters.

“She was intrigued,” Ijanna said.  She turned her gaze back and stared at the distant Chul.  “I’d come to her for answers.  Nightmares call to me, Kath.”  Her red eyes were glassy and frozen, and something in her voice sounded ready to crack.  “Every night I dream of the Black Tower.  I feel Chul Gaerog pulling me, dragging me closer.  Every moment I’m not moving towards that terrible place I feel its icy presence, like a cold breath on the back of my neck.”  She looked at him, and she was near tears.  “But the Witch Mother had never felt such a compulsion.  I had to fight it, and I thought maybe she would know how.”

Kath looked back at the warriors in the trees.  He wanted to take the fight to them just to put an end to the waiting, but he knew that was what they wanted. 

They’re trying to bait you out
. 
Don’t let them.  Be patient, for her sake!

“
It was so strange, being in her presence,” Ijanna continued.  “Like looking into a twisted mirror.  She looked like me, but we couldn’t be more different.”  Ijanna took a breath.  The memory of her meeting with the Witch Mother was obviously a painful one.  “She knew all about our destiny, and she’d have nothing to do with it, because she intended to take Chul Gaerog for herself.  She’d used her powers to heal others, to bend them to her will and gather a small army, and she made each of her followers as twisted and corrupt as she was.  She shares a bond of suffering with her soldiers: every life they take and every person they consume just darkens their souls even more.  They see everything through a lens of brutality.  In her mind the only way to save the world is through causing pain.  She won’t heal Malzaria by sacrificing herself, but by sacrificing others.”  She looked at Kath.  “That’s how she’s resisted the lure of the dreams.  The sound of her own madness drowns out the call of the Black Tower.”

Kath swallowed. 

“Goddess.  Is…is what she wants to do possible?” he asked.  “How can she
take
Chul Gaerog?”

“
Vlagoth invested a great deal of her power into building that citadel, and she had help from the Voss and the Arkan.  It’s a formidable stronghold – many would like to get their hands on the secrets and magic the Blood Queen left behind.  Ever since the end of the Rift War people have searched for a way to breach Chul Gaerog’s defenses and lay claim to it, but none have been successful.  The Witch Mother and the Chul
worship
Chul Gaerog, and they believe gaining access will bring them glory.”

A wolf’s howl cut across the plains.  Kath’s stomach growled, but the thought of eating made him ill. 

“What happened then?” he asked, not really certain he wanted the answer.

“
She tried to kill me,” Ijanna said.  “She seemed to think she could steal my magic by eating my flesh and drinking my blood, and that sacrificing me was the key to breaching the Black Tower.  I’d approached her under a flag of truce, and at first it seemed she’d honored that.  She let me go, and it wasn’t until I reached a small village a few miles north of Ravenwood that I fell into her trap.  The Chul had already murdered the people who lived there.  Three of the Witch Mother’s most powerful warriors waited for me.”  Ijanna looked off.

“
You killed them?” Kath said.

“
Yes.  I don’t respond well to being backed into a corner.”  Her voice was cold.  Kath was suddenly very afraid of the notion of incurring Ijanna’s wrath.  “As it turns out, one of the three she’d sent after me was her son.  Another was her daughter.”

“
Oh, Goddess…”

“
They were nothing to her,” Ijanna said.  “It’s power she wants. 
My
power.  And failing to kill me has doubtless made her seem weak in the eyes of her followers.”  She sat back against the stone.  “They’ve been after me ever since.  They, the Jlantrians, the Phage, the Black Guild…”  The look in her eyes was distant and pained.  “I’m so tired of running.”

Kath watched her.  She was so strong, stronger than he was, stronger than he’d
ever
be.  He couldn’t imagine the force of will it took to keep fighting, to keep running, when all her life she’d been told she was going to die. 

I’ll die for you
, he thought.  He didn’t know if the thought was his own or if it had been put there by the Veil, but it didn’t really matter. 

“
Ijanna…listen,” he said.  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.  I promise.”

Ijanna smiled.  To his surprise she leaned over and hugged him.  The motion took him off guard, and her touch sent a jolt of electricity through his body, but she only held him for a moment, long enough for him to feel her warmth deep in his soul. 

“Be careful,” she said sadly as she pulled away, “not to make promises you can’t keep.”

Kath looked back to the rocky hills.  The Chul were still waiting, and there were still eight of them. 

Good.  But I wish they’d just get it over with. 

Was this it?  Was he going to die out there in the middle of nowhere? 

She was worth dying for.  He’d never had anyone in his life like Ijanna, not ever, and the thought of her not being there with him was terrifying.

I love you
, he wanted to tell her, but he wouldn’t, because he didn’t know if it was true.

“
So what’s the connection?” Kath asked.  “You said you were sisters.”

“
Yes,” Ijanna said.  “We’re the Blood Queen’s children.”

“
What?!”

“
Not flesh and blood,” Ijanna said.  She sat there quietly, burdened by the weight pressing down on her.  If she felt any relief to be sharing these secrets she didn’t show it – she seemed more like Kath always felt at confessional, reluctantly telling the priest all of the impure thoughts that made him so ashamed.  “She cursed our fathers,” Ijanna said.  “The men who killed her and ended the war.”

“
Wait….who was your father?” Kath asked.

“
Jonas Taivorkan,” she said.  “The Den’nari advisor to Silver Company, and a friend to Colonel Corgan Bloodwine.  They found a secret way into the Black Tower, a way that’s since been sealed.  Bloodwine killed Vlagoth.  The others went in after he’d died and saw her inner sanctum.”  She looked at Kath, and smiled sadly.  “You know the story, I’m sure.”

“
Of course,” he said.  There were few who didn’t.  “Colonel Bloodwine died at Chul Gaerog, and Merrick Avarian passed away a few years later from sickness.  I’m…not sure what happened to your father…”

“
He died,” Ijanna said quietly, “defending a minor crime lord named Bordrec Kleiderhorn.  Bordrec still owes me for that.  He was the reason I was able to sneak into Ebonmark and avoid getting captured.”  She watched the Chul.  “My father was cursed.  All three of them were cursed.  They killed Vlagoth before her work was done, so now her daughters have to finish it for her.”

For a moment he sat stunned. 

“Who told you this?” he asked.  “This can’t be true…”

“
It
is
true,” Ijanna said angrily.  “I’ve spent most of my life trying to disprove it.  We’re down to my last desperate attempt to find a way out of this.  Can you imagine what it’s like knowing you can do something monumentally good if you’re only willing to pay the price and do something horrible first?”  Tears welled in her eyes.  “Can you imagine what it’s like to be living in a shadow your entire life, knowing that whatever you do is pointless because your story has already been written?”  She gritted her teeth in anger.  “I’m not a hero, Kath, and I never have been.  I don’t want to die…but if I refuse, everyone else
will
.  If I don’t sacrifice myself, magic will consume us all.”

Ijanna’s words drove like knives through his skin.  He wasn’t sure what to say.  The wolf song intensified, but the howls were forlorn, afraid. 

“How?” he asked plainly.  “How will your sacrifice save us?”

“
The Blood Queen will be born again, in me,” she said.  “And she’ll destroy the evil in this world.”  Her voice had a dark edge to it. 

“
The Blood Queen tried to kill everyone…” Kath said.

“
No,” Ijanna said.  “Trust me, I didn’t want to believe it either, but she didn’t.  Carastena Vlagoth was trying to destroy something else.”  Her red eyes held him locked in her gaze.