Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion) (33 page)

Erryn began digging herself out of the snow, the length of her spine filled with a throbbing ache. The longer it took, the harder she fought, until each breath burned in her raw throat. She didn’t care. She had to get to her general.
To Aedran
.

She had pulled herself free and was stepping clumsily to meet him, when a loud fluttering gave her a fright. She spun, hands raised in defense, but there was no danger, so far as she could see.

Erryn stared in openmouthed wonder at the scrawny little man standing next to her. She was sure he had not been there a moment earlier.

He reached out, but hesitated to touch her arm. “By the grace of Lady Mylene of House Akarlen, and by the strong arms of the Wardens of Tanglewood, you’re quite safe. Of course, if your Captain Murgan hadn’t found one of Ravenhold’s patrols, things might have taken an unfortunate turn for you and your men.” Despite the fine cut of the little man’s bulky woolen cloak, he looked ratty and rumpled, and his black hair hung in lank strands about his thin face. “But then, we’re all the safer for the arrival of Lord Lofgrem and his army of Prythians.”

Why would there be another army of Prythians here besides my own?
Erryn decided that could wait. “Who are you?”

He beamed. “I’m Horge, kennelmaster of Ravenhold.” His shoulders gave a fidgety twitch. “Truth told, I’m also the master of horse and, too, I mind chickens and geese, swine and sheep, and….” He trailed off with a helpless shrug. “As it concerns Lady Mylene’s stock, I tend them all. I understand them, you see, more than most.”

There was something curious about the way he said that last, but then Aedran was at Erryn’s side, looking suspiciously at the ratty fellow.

Before her general could say a word, Horge asked Erryn, “If I may be so bold, who are you?”

“She’s the chosen Queen of Pryth,” Aedran answered.

Horge blinked, his thin fingers tapping against his lips. “Queen of Pryth, you say? Oh my. That isn’t good. No, no, not good at all.”

“Why?” Erryn asked, bewildered.

Horge’s nose twitched like that of a forest creature detecting a raging woodland fire. “Because the
other
chosen Queen of Pryth will be none too pleased to learn of a rival. Nor, I suspect, will those who chose her,” he added, waving a hand over the host of Prythians busily ensuring all the iceworms were dead.

Erryn faced Aedran. “What’ve you gotten me into?”

He shook his head, concern etched deep into his face. “I don’t know, but rest assured, I will find out.”

His promise should have comforted her, but Erryn felt as if inescapable chains were wrapping her about and cinching tight. A report from a man Aedran trusted had led Erryn to march her army into this frozen wasteland in order to find and destroy her greatest enemy, King Nabar. Such an audacious attack would have secured her hold on northern Cerrikoth, but without warning Nabar, wherever he was in the Iron Marches, had become a minor concern. Recalling how often Aedran had spoken of Prythians willingly fighting amongst each other, she sensed a grave danger with the presence of a second Queen of Pryth and her army. More than ever, Erryn wished she had remained a simple orphan girl who lived free, even if it meant scrounging for every meal and sleeping cold. Crowns, even nonexistent ones like hers, were nothing but shackles of gold and misery.

Chapter 30

“I’ve done all I can,” a woman said.

“You’ve done nothing more than I could have!” came Fira’s sharp retort.

The conversation sounded far away to Nesaea, as if echoing along a dark tunnel that smelled of sopping wool and char.

“She’ll live,” the unknown woman said. “I dare say that’s more than anyone could have hoped for. Most die from the corruption that sets into such wounds, but I’ve seen to it that your friend will live—that is
far
more than you could have done.”

Nesaea’s eyelids fluttered, but would not open. One side of her face felt stuffed with hot embers. The other was cold.

“What of Jathen?” Fira demanded. “Will you punish that bastard for what he did?”

“My husband and I have an alliance with the monks of Skalos and, in particular, with Brother Jathen. For her sake, I regret what he did, but you and your friend are his to do with as he pleases.”

Nesaea waited for more, but heard instead the sound of muffled footsteps and the rustling of heavy cloth. Fira cursed softly.

Nesaea tried to piece together what had happened, but could only gather tidbits: A wall of stone crushing the
Lamprey
; swimming in the bitter cold waters of the River Sedge; fetching up on the icy shore; a man, familiar and terrifying. There was more, but the images were blurred, nightmarish, and had to do with …
Jathen
.

Drifting between wakefulness and sleep, abstract pieces began melding themselves together in her mind, until she saw Jathen peering into her eyes, his glare full of hate and vengeance. In time, his voice came to her down that tunnel of misery.
Whenever I look at my face, you see, I wonder what recompense such a grievous wound demands. Now I look at you, and wonder, what would such a pretty young woman cherish most about herself. What, I ask, is that one thing you could lose that would make you understand my pain?
Those words rang like the distant peals of a great bell, and Jathen’s agate blue eyes swam before hers, his pupils reflecting flames.

“No!” she cried, her eyes pinched shut, lest the man was actually beside her.

Gentle hands held her down. “You need sleep,” Fira said.

“No,” Nesaea moaned.

“It’s over. But if you’re to get better, you must rest.”

Nesaea carefully opened her eyes on strange surroundings lit by a single candle. Wet and dripping, sagging canvas hung above her, divided down the center by a taut line.
A tent?
She had seen the same many times, but couldn’t understand how she had come to be in one.

She glanced to one side, surprised to feel a pillow under her head. She was lying on a narrow cot, and heavy rugs covered the floor. Through the half-parted tent flap, soldiers passed by in the light of torches.

“Where are we?”

Sitting on the edge of the cot, Fira studied her hands. “On the bank of the River Sedge. The same place we were after the
Lamprey
sank. Instead of letting us freeze to death, the gods made us prisoners of the King and Queen of Cerrikoth. The best I can say of them is that they gave us shelter.” She offered a brittle smile. “Did I mention the dragon?”

Nesaea tried to laugh, but it hurt her face. “Surely you jest?”

Fira shook her head, taking great pains, it seemed, to avoid looking at Nesaea. “After Jathen … after what he did … something came out of the forest. A dome of sorts, crawling with lightning, but also somehow clear, like glass. With it came warmth and mist … and the dragon.”

Something tickled the back of Nesaea’s mind, but try as she might, she could not pin it down.

Fira glanced toward the tent’s doorway. “There’s some kind of magic here, and Queen Mirith seems more interested in that, than in anything else. I’ve never seen anything like it, nor have I ever heard of such things as I saw. The magic Horge’s sister used—”

“Yiri,” Nesaea said, remembering the girl’s name, and the deadly green fire she had wielded at Ravenhold.

“Yes, even her magic pales beside what’s at work here. Almost as soon as the dragon appeared, it did something to put everyone to sleep. When I woke, it seemed as though I must have dreamed it all. The air was cold again, and the snow was falling.” She looked at Nesaea for the first time. “That’s when I knew it was no dream, for the snow fell on
wet
ground, where before the riverbank had been all snow and ice.”

That niggling sensation troubled Nesaea again, and her heart sped up. “Rathe? Loro? Where are they?”

“They came back while you were unconscious. After the dragon … they were gone.”

They are still alive.
Nesaea knew there was no reason to think so, but she felt it in her bones.

She sat up, wincing at the hot throbbing that spread from the side of her head to her neck and down her shoulder. She made to touch the source of that pain, but Fira caught her wrist. “Leave it.”

Nesaea pulled away. “What’s the matter with—”

She cut off when her fingers brushed over a wide bandage and snagged in her hair. When she drew them away, some of the hair fell into her blanketed lap. Instead of glossy black strands, they looked like bits of withered straw.

Fira stared at her with an emotion approaching horror, then burst into tears.

Shaking, Nesaea touched her head again, and felt a mass of blistered skin above the bandage. “What happened?”

Fira buried her face in hands, and could not seem to find enough air to speak.

“What happened to me?” Nesaea demanded, seeing again the flames reflected in Jathen’s eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was small. “What did that whoreson do to me?”

“Rest,” Fira sobbed. “Please, just rest.”

An aching knot formed in Nesaea chest. “I want to see.”

“No.”

Nesaea took Fira’s hands in her own. “Show me.”

“We have no mirror.”

A hasty search brought Nesaea’s eye to the candleholder. It was silver and of simple design, but the large round base would suffice. She ordered Fira to retrieve it, and after a long moment, she obeyed.

Careful not to dribble wax, Nesaea pulled the candle free and handed it to Fira. Jaw clenched, she lifted the candleholder, turning it so she could see her distorted reflection.

Much of the hair on one side of her head had been scorched to a yellowish bristle above the bandage. Below the bandage, her cheek was shiny pink and so puffy that it pulled one side of her mouth into a sneer. Nesaea forced herself to say, “The dressings are in the way.”

“The queen and I just put them on.”

“Take them off!”

“No. Not now. On the morrow, when we change them, will be soon enough.”

Nesaea almost agreed to that, but couldn’t let it go with the way Fira was behaving. “Please, do this for me.”

Quivering head to foot, Fira tried again to dissuade her. “Removing them will hurt.”

“It already hurts. Now do as I ask, or I’ll do it myself.”

After wiping away her tears, Fira began unwrapping the bandages. While she worked, the sharp odors of a healing salve, burned meat, and scorched hair assailed Nesaea.

When she finished, Fira sat back. “Look if you will, but I beg you not to.”

Nesaea hesitated, then slowly lifted the candleholder, again turning it so she could see herself. “Oh,” she moaned. The hand holding the candleholder began to shake, so she steadied it with her other hand. The terrible image remained, and she shut her eyes on it.
That isn’t me. It cannot be!

But she knew the rippling mass of blackened and weeping flesh, which started near the crown of her head and ran down her neck like melted wax, belonged to her as much as the hand bearing the candleholder. She opened her eyes again, and looked once more.

Where’s my ear
, she thought, mystified by a horror that sank marrow deep. Where an ear should have been, she saw only a deformed nub surrounding a hole packed with salve. She thought to ask the question aloud, but a high, mourning wail began to fill up the tent.

Until a pair of guards rushed in and eased her down on the cot, Nesaea didn’t realize that terrible sound was coming from her.

Chapter 31

Loro looked about the sparse but well-appointed and windowless room. “Where do you think we are?”

Rathe had been wondering the same since he woke up an hour before, and found that his clothes were clean and dry, and that someone had bandaged his skull. The wound was still tender where he had bashed his head against the rocks of the River Sedge, but the thudding ache had become tolerable enough that he could think straight. Either a fine healer had attended him, or he and Loro had been here for some time before waking up. “I don’t know where we are, but if this is a prison cell, it’s the finest I’ve ever been in—not that I’ve been in many, mind you.”

Across the room, Loro leaned back on his narrow featherbed and laughed. “Well, I’ve been in plenty of cells, brother, and I can assure you, this place beats them all, along with most inns I’ve frequented. Still, I’m of the mind that we should leave—and the sooner the better.”

Rathe crossed the room to small round table, poured himself a cup of pale wine, and sipped. The flavor was sweeter than nectar. “Once we escape, we’ll have to find Nesaea, Fira, and anyone else who was taken prisoner.”

“Far as I remember, our captor was a
dragon
,” Loro reminded him.

Rathe remembered that too, but wished it were otherwise. Ever since venturing north of the Shadow Road, he had seen too many dark legends come to life. Beyond the Gyntors, even farther north, it seemed as if only mad gods ruled the world.

“No dragon built this place, which means there are men involved. We’ll deal with either trouble as we come to it. Afterward, we get back to where we belong—”