The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe (32 page)

They climbed up and down ridges, splashing through marshy meadows and swift running creeks. Her feet were blistered and raw and her clothes were muddy and torn. Blood ran from scratches and welts on her hands and she’d torn away two fingernails when climbing the steep rocky hillsides.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since they’d taken her from Molford. She thought it might be just three days, but she couldn’t be sure. They rarely halted to rest, and only for a glass or two. Oddly enough, the pain began helping her to hold on to herself. It didn’t let her slide into hazy oblivion. Instead her mind slowly sharpened and now she kept her wits about her. They were nearly there, wherever it was they were going. When they got there, she was going to have to kill them.

She swallowed, her body throbbing with endless pain. If she had the strength.

 

It was past nightfall when they stopped again. Saradapul had given her some water and dried meat sometime in the afternoon, but it hardly sustained her. Even chewing and swallowing was excruciating.

They’d spent what seemed like hours climbing ever upward and now emerged onto a mountain summit. The ground was blessedly flat.

“Sit,” Saradapul told her.

She slumped down onto a granite outcropping. She pulled the stillness around her like a balm. Slowly the pain abated to a more tolerable level. When it had, she glanced at her two companions. They stood fifty paces away where the slope fell away. Beyond them in the distance she could see the lights of the Pale. Which meant they weren’t far from Sylmont. She frowned and stood, tottering forward. Abruptly she halted, the bottom falling out of her stomach.

They stood high in the Cat’s Paw Mountains above the city. It was still another day’s walk away at least. But from here it seemed like she could touch it. Except that swaths of it were eerily dark and the rest was sparsely lit. The harbor was usually swarming with firefly lanterns bobbing on the ships and now the broad expanse of Blackwater Bay was stygian. Acrid smoke drifted in the air above the city.

“What happened?” Margaret whispered. Everything seemed unnaturally still.

“The gods favor us,” was Atreya’s response.

She looked at him. Now was her chance. She flicked her rings open and began to ease toward him. She jumped when Saradapul gripped her upper arm and pushed her back to the rock. She sat down, her body quivering with reawakened pain. She closed her rings, furious at herself. She should have been quicker.

“Stay here.” He took her neck rope and tied it around a low-growing bush.

The two Jutras strode away into the darkness. Margaret shivered and went to the bush to untie herself. The pain made her fingers clumsy and the knot was wet and tight. She couldn’t budge it. She kept at it, stopping to rest for a few minutes when her shaking hands refused to hold the rope. Before long traitorous exhaustion caught her in its net and she slid down onto the ground and fell asleep with her head on the rock seat.

She wasn’t sure how much later she woke. It was not yet dawn. She sat up slowly, wincing as the pain came rushing back. She looked around for the Jutras wizards. They were performing another spell. It was their chant that had woken her. It seemed very similar to the previous one, only this time the spell didn’t rise up out of the ground. Their movements grew faster and more violent and their voices rose into shouts. Both were nearly naked, wearing loincloths and carrying their swords tucked in beaded strings around their waists. Their skins were oiled and their hair hung loose. The earlier wounds had healed, no doubt by majick, and now they inflicted new ones on each other.

Suddenly they halted, both caught in grotesque poses that looked like they might be about to kill one another, or else make love. Slowly they eased backward and stepped out of the spell pattern. With ritual pacing, each picked up a slender pole about eight feet tall. They were identical, both lacquered red and tapering to a point at each end. They looked to be about six inches in diameter in the middle before they widened out.

They didn’t seem heavy. Atreya and Saradapul hefted them easily, holding them at a diagonal, and began tracing a complex path back to the center of the spell. They rotated around the outside, then started inside. They began another chant. This one was low and guttural. It scraped at Margaret’s bones and made her shiver. The air filled with a waiting, like a lowering storm. Her heart thundered with primal fear. She should have tried harder to kill them. She shouldn’t have let them do whatever it was they were doing.

Once again she felt the creature from before—Uniat’s hound, Forcan—as it shimmered into being. Margaret’s stomach clenched. Heat flowed over her like hot breath and something bumped hard against her. She yelped as pain bloomed again. She tried to scramble away, but it followed her. Forcan’s breath swept her again and she cringed against the ground, waiting for it to pick her up and shake her again. The grains dribbled past. Nothing happened. She sat up slowly and was knocked down again by what felt like a massive paw. She sprawled on her back, her head snapping against the rock.

Her brain spun and her vision whirled. She lay still as Forcan snuffled around her. The hound shoved against her ribs, and then she heard it pad away. She let out a weak sigh, then bit down on her trembling lips. She wouldn’t let them see her fear. She eased upright again.

She saw a shimmer of motion at the edge of the spell pattern. Forcan circled—tall as a horse. As the creature paced around the circle, it grew more visible. She swallowed, her mouth dry. It had the loose bearing of a cat with a heavy head and no tail. It was the color of twilight. Its coat was purple, gray, and charcoal with brindles of dull orange, pink, and red. Its tongue was black and its eyes were tarnished gold. It watched as the priests erected the two poles in the center of the spell, leaving a pace between.

The wizards’ chant swelled loudly and then dropped to a low musical murmur, then rose again, louder. The pattern repeated until they ended in a shouted crescendo that rang through the night air. By now the hound was fully visible. He panted, his black tongue lolling between his long, curved teeth. His gold gaze swept the mountaintop, and then he turned and disappeared. Margaret wasn’t sure if he simply vanished, or if he went down the mountain. Her stomach churned to think of that beast loose and hunting in Crosspointe.

She didn’t have much time to think about it. A moment later Saradapul approached her. Even as she watched, the wounds of the ritual healed. Sweat beaded on his oiled skin and his eyes glowed with an unnatural light.

He pulled her to her feet without a word and marched her to a nearby spring. It bubbled up in a shallow pool and ran down the mountain in a narrow rivulet. A copse of trees surrounded it.

He yanked off her coat and tossed it to the ground, then began on her clothing.

She shoved his hands away, gasping as claws of pain raked her skin. “What are you doing?”

“You will stand before the gods pure.” Then he began again. When she fought him, he tied her neck rope to an overhanging limb, pulling it taut. When she could no longer move without strangling herself, he set about undressing her again. He was not gentle, tearing what gave him too much difficulty. Margaret flexed her fingers. He would take her rings and she’d be helpless.

Surreptitiously, she slid one down into her palm and lifted it to her mouth, tucking it in her cheek. He had pulled off her boots and was now tugging off her trousers. She forced herself not to flinch away. Lastly he removed her small clothes with a sharp tug. Cloth ripped and he dropped the tatters of cotton on the ground. He looked her up down.

“The gods will be pleased,” he said, like he was evaluating a painting or a piece of jewelry.

He untied her and pushed her into the spring. The water was frigid and numbed her raw feet almost instantly. From a pouch on the bank Saradapul pulled a handful of red crystals. He dampened them, then began to wash her from head to toe. The crystals abraded her skin, rubbing her raw. Blood seeped through the wounds and turned her scarlet. Combined with the spell, she almost fainted, holding on to consciousness by sheer stubbornness. He reached for her hand and began sliding off the poisoned rings. She clenched her other hand, her body swaying from the deluge of pain. It was now or never. She was out of time. She’d have to hope she could surprise Atreya.

She clumsily pushed a catch and a needle sprang free. She turned it to her palm. Slowly, quietly, with no fuss at all, she put her hand on his shoulder and pressed, scratching the needle across his skin and raising a thin thread of blood. He looked up at her. His mouth opened and then he stiffened. His body spasmed and he splashed into the pool at her feet. She eyed him blearily. Something inside her prodded her to run. Where? She staggered up onto the bank and turned in a confused circle. Fire burned her skin where the red crystals had scraped her and her head spun like she was drugged. Her teeth clamped on the gold ring in her mouth.

She took a step and her leg turned to pudding. She fell to the ground. All around her the earth moved in undulating waves. The crystals must have drugged her too. Her stomach lurched and she vomited. There was little in her stomach but bile. The ring fell to the ground as she vomited again. She drew a breath and the air seared her lungs. She coughed and knives stabbed through her chest.

Blossoms of black agony bloomed around her throat as she was hoisted to her feet. Atreya held her rope. His yellow eyes gleamed at her from a face that softened and ran like wax. She struggled against his hold, trying to get away. But she found herself falling to the ground. The world whirled in a storm of colors and shapes. The earth swelled and diminished like it was breathing. Ants boiled inside her body. Snakes wriggled through her bones. She shuddered and convulsed. Pain exploded and exploded again, swallowing her in a tornado of fire.

A hard claw clamped her arm and pulled her upright. Atreya’s voice rumbled through her like a stony avalanche. “Saradapul was one of Uniat’s favorites. You will suffer long between his teeth before he swallows you.”

He dragged her back to the pool and finished methodically bathing her with the red crystals. Margaret was lost in a melting world of sensation. Fear pulsed hard inside her, but she was helpless beneath Atreya’s impersonal ministrations.

When Atreya had finished, he dragged her back to the middle of the summit meadow. Margaret had little sense of what was happening to her now. She was a ball of pain. All her senses slid away from her. She was the center of a writhing, melting world. Nothing made sense anymore.

Her last thought as her mind melted into the cauldron of pain and chaos was that she’d failed. She should have killed Atreya when she had the chance.

Keros swore loudly in the mountain silence, then clamped his teeth shut as the sound echoed up the ravine. He was on foot. His mare had come up lame a day ago and he’d been forced to turn her loose. On foot, his progress was too slow. The Jutras hardly seemed to rest. Keros was muddy and exhausted. His legs ached and his feet were wet and blistered. Still he did not stop. He’d been within a few hours of his prey when he’d abandoned the mare and had been falling behind ever since. His link to Margaret told him that a few hours before the Jutras had halted, and he was determined to use the time to overtake them.

He hoped he was not too late.

He was panting by the time he reached the top of the ridge. The ground dropped away and rose again. Ahead was a collision of three peaks. The middle one was lower with a dull, flat top. He frowned. A dull red mist swathed the top of it. Gauzy crimson folds swirled as if on a patiently building storm. All around it, the light patterns darkened and slowed like dying embers in a fire. A stillness fell over the mountains and even the wind quieted. The air tasted of blood.

In that moment, a jolt shook Keros to the heels of his feet. He jabbed the walking stick he’d made into the ground for balance. Grasping his
illidre
, he searched for the link to Margaret. He found only Carston. His mouth went dry and without thinking, he began running down the slope in jagged leaps and bounds.

Near the bottom he fell and rolled into a grassy gully. A moment later he was up again. He fought his way out of his pack and dropped it, snatching up his walking stick and beginning the steep climb to the summit. He wound back and forth, skidding and slipping on the wet grass and mud, bracing himself with his stick. He found a vein of rock and followed its snaking path back upward. His ribs bellowed as he fought for breath. Dawn was breaking. The sun would rise in less than a half a glass.

At the top he slowed. The circling curtain of mist blocked his path. He could see through its billows and what he saw stopped his heart.

Two slender poles rose from a brilliantly lit spell pattern. They were narrow at the bottom, widening slightly midway up before tapering to sharp points at the top. Both were a dark red. Stretched between them was Margaret. Her hands had been impaled on the points and her body hung limp. She was naked, her skin coated in a film of blood. Faintly Keros could see the pattern of her lights—leaf green, velvet blue with specks of brilliant orange, pink, yellow, and scarlet. She was alive. But barely.

Movement caught his eye. A Jutras priest was dancing widdershins around the edge of the spell circle. He wore a breechclout. A red sword was clutched in his hand, the tip of it turned in a wicked hook. His steps were intricate as he stamped out the dance. His body swayed and shimmied up and down and side to side as he twisted and turned his arms in a brutal, beautiful cadence. His lights were brilliant gold. They swarmed like a horde of bees and were heartbreakingly beautiful. As the wizard priest danced, he chanted. Majick built in the air. Keros had to suppress the urge to duck down and hide. Something heavy and terrifyingly large swept searchingly through the night. The priest was calling it.