The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (2 page)

Arik followed his finger to Lark and Fiora and the chiton, and wicked glee lit his face.  Cob pushed him onward, and in a few strides he was upon the girls in all his glory, to a squealed chorus of horror and delight.

He ambled up just as Arik hoisted a kicking, laughing bundle of Lark over his shoulder and dashed off for the trees, the chiton unfurling from her hands like a banner.  Fiora was just sitting up, red-faced and snickering, and when he offered his arm she grabbed it with a grin and let him pull her up.  “Dirty trick,” she said.

“If I have t'deal with that, so does everyone else.”

Fiora rolled her eyes and stooped to pick up the furs Lark had left behind.  For a moment, Cob just watched her.  Not much bothered by the weather, she wore only the laced tunic that went under her padding and chainmail, a pair of close-cut leggings, and some soft leather slippers.

He managed to look away from the tilt of her hips only to find Dasira eyeing him.

From the way she was still cocooned, he guessed she had not been awake for long—which was reasonable, since only two days had passed since the stud in her right ear had exploded, nearly taking her head with it.  He couldn't see much beneath the hood but he remembered her there in the snow, immobile and barely conscious: ear gone, cheek and scalp scorched, skull shattered beneath.

That she was alive at all—let alone moving—was the work of the bracer on her left arm, its hidden tendrils pervading muscle and bone like a puppet's strings.  Her consciousness was seated there too, the rest of the body just a stolen shell.

Enkhaelen's work.  Like the ear-stud, like the manor house, like all of Cob's recent difficulties, Dasira's bracer had been crafted by that bastard necromancer.  She was his servant, and even though he had apparently discarded her—even though she insisted she had chosen Cob's side—Cob didn't know how much he could trust her.

His heart wanted to, but his heart was stupid sometimes.

He held out his hand to her anyway.  She looked at it, looked up at his face, then reached from her cocoon—one hand holding a small knife, the other a hard sausage.  Both hooked over his forearm, and with a mutual effort, she gained her feet.

“Thanks,” she mumbled from within the furs, then pulled them closer, masking everything.

Cob tried to smile, but it was difficult.  “Yeah.  Any time.”

The look she gave him was clear:
I doubt that.

“Here, Cob,” said Fiora, and dropped the bundle of furs into his arms when he turned.  Dusting her hands together, she surveyed their little spectating site, then bent down to retrieve her new silver sword in its makeshift sheath.  “Goddess, it's like Lark needs to wear a whole wolf-pack to go outside,” she said as she hooked it over her shoulder by the strap.  “Not that I think any of those are wolf fur.  That would be awkward.  After meeting Sogan, I don't know about wearing bears either.”

“Dead is dead,” mumbled Dasira from her swaddle.  “Doesn't matter.”

Fiora opened her mouth, but Cob cut in first.  “Ilshenrir, you doin' all right?”

The shimmer beside them resolved slowly into the wan form of their wraith companion.  Not quite recovered from Enkhaelen's attack, he still looked inhuman: his eyes crystalline oblongs without pupil or white, his face stiff as a porcelain mask, bite-marks flecking his cheeks.  The fine filaments of his hair had regrown properly from where they'd been torn out, but were as dull as smoked glass and seemed brittle, like his garments.

“I am well.  Do not be concerned,” he said without moving his mouth, voice seeming to echo up from a great distance.  It was creepy.

“No, be concerned,” said Fiora.  “He told me he spent last night in a tree because the wolves chased him off as soon as you fell asleep.”

“They what?” said Cob, abruptly furious.

Ilshenrir raised a mollifying hand.  Unlike the rest of him, his grey gloves still looked real.  “It is their right.  I am an intruder, one they will not tolerate unless forced.  Without your presence, Guardian, I considered retreat the best option.”

“But...a tree?”

“In truth, four trees.  They climbed the first three.”

Cob clenched his teeth to avoid a cursing spree.  He'd hoped that hunting Enkhaelen down and breaking the bonds that held the Guardian would do away with some of his problems, but they seemed to be multiplying—not just the big issues but smaller ones.  Quiet frustrations, secret conflicts, dark thoughts.  He needed some time to breathe.

But he knew he wouldn't get it, so he packed the anger back down into the depths.  He'd deal with it later.

“I'll talk to them,” he said.  “They need to accept that you're under my protection whether I'm awake or not.”

“And me?” said Dasira neutrally.

“What, did they bother you too?”

“No, I'm...just asking.”

He opened his mouth to say
of course
, but caught himself.  Twice she had betrayed him, first as Darilan in the Crimson camp and then in this skin, following at his heels as she conspired with Enkhaelen in secret.  She'd said it was for his sake—for his safety—and he believed her, but her idea of his best interest did not match up with his own.

“I can't promise anythin',” he told her, “so don't make trouble.”

Dasira nodded and straightened within her furs as if taking the warning to heart.  He wasn't sure whether to be satisfied or saddened by that.

“So what was that last thing you did against the wolves?” said Fiora.  She nodded toward the circle of mud.  “It looked strange.  Not that your Guardian tricks aren't usually strange, but you went blacker than black and then sort of...seeped water, like some kind of wellspring.  We felt it from up here.  It wasn't comfortable.”

He saw the question in her eyes. 
Was that the same thing that almost drowned us at the manor?

Not wanting to explain, he shrugged.  “Jus' happened.”  Which was true enough.

Her eyes narrowed and her full lips compressed slightly, but she shrugged in return.  “As long as you know what you're doing.”

“Yeah.”

“So did it work?”

“No.”

“Well...”  A strained moment, then she said, “Anyway, we think we figured out the sword.”

Cob flicked a look to the sword slung over her shoulder.  Made of Muriae silver, it was the one from the manor tomb—the one that he had lifted from Enkhaelen's dead wife's grip, and that had nearly undone the necromancer's existence.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.  While you were doing your wolf thing, we did some tests.”  She unshouldered the sword to hold it by the top of the sheath, quillons resting against her fingers.  Tilting the hilt toward herself, she said, “Obviously it does nothing to me when I touch it, sheathed or unsheathed.  Didn't do anything to you either, right?”

“Right.”

“And it doesn't bother Ilshenrir.”  She pointed the hilt at the wraith, who reached out to clasp the pommel with his gloved hand.  “Doesn't do anything to his magic unless he tries to cast on it.  Spells won't stick.”

“As expected,” noted the wraith.  “The Muriae and their ilk are hardened against arcane tampering.”

“And it doesn't bother her either,” said Fiora, pointing the hilt at Dasira, “until it gets close to her bracer.  Like this, see...”

She started to reach out with it, but Dasira hissed and stepped back, turning her left side away, and Cob stepped between them before Fiora could pursue her.  “Stop,” he said.  “If it's dangerous to her...”

“Well, I asked first—“

“And I told you, never again,” snapped Dasira.

“I just want to demonstrate—“

Cob held up a quelling hand.  “It's not necessary.  That thing almost took apart an ancient necromancer.  I don't want to risk it hurting anyone else.”

“But that's my point,” said Fiora, frowning at him.  “It took Enkhaelen apart but it didn't do anything to any of us except her, and we know she's his servant.”  She tried to point around Cob with the sword but he moved into the way, so she rapped the hilt against his chest in annoyance. “I saw magic come off her bracer like it came off his arm when he was unraveling.  That means—“

“We already know he made her.  We're not gonna hold that against her.”

“Would you listen already?  It means whatever this sword does, it might work against Enkhaelen's magic
only
.”

He blinked, then looked from the sword to the stubborn set of her face.  If that was true, then...  “It's specifically hostile to him?”

“I think so.  It's not like we've had much to test it against, but—“

“Can he defend against it?  Ilshenrir?”

The wraith tilted his head, expression still frozen.  “I am not well enough to analyze it, but as I indicated, the Muriae are hardened against arcane power.  They breach our spells with ease.  If this blade is fixated upon one enemy, perhaps its effect on him is greater.”

A sword of revenge
, Cob thought.  At the manor, he had walked within Enkhaelen's nightmare and seen what the necromancer had done.  That killing spell, refined specifically to destroy Muriae yet finding the wrong target.  The spreading flames of horror and despair, the smoke that had choked all who struggled there.  The fleeing child...

It was hard to piece together a full picture, and he couldn't say which parts were real and which delusion.  But he knew that Enkhaelen had shot his wife in the back by accident, and that she had died.  Perhaps that had imbued the sword against him.

He almost wanted to return it to the tomb.  Enkhaelen and his wife been defending each other—defending their daughter—against Trifolders, and though he didn't know why, it still felt like a sad, tragic mess.  Raising this blade against that man would be like spitting in his eye.

Enkhaelen deserved to die.  But by this?

Cob shook his head, trying to cast those thoughts away.  He wished he'd never seen the nightmare, never sympathized.  He had enough problems already.

“Unfortunately, he knows we have it,” said Fiora.  “And he's only ever come to us in corpse bodies.  We need to find his real body and kill that, but with this forewarning...  Up until now, he's been toying with us, but we've just made it serious.”

“We already know where he is,” said Cob, nodding vaguely north.  “The Palace.”

“That's not as helpful as you'd think.”

“It's what we've got.”

She narrowed her eyes at him again and planted a fist on her hip.  “It's what the fragment told you in the nightmare, right?  How do you know it was telling the truth?”

“I jus' do,” he said, even though he didn't.  The ragged monstrosity in the little garret room had claimed to be the Ravager and spoken of its own vendetta against Enkhaelen—its desire to be free of him.  But the Guardian hadn't trusted it, so neither could he.

With no other leads, though, the Palace seemed their only option.

“Generations of my people have been swallowed up by that piking place,” said Fiora.  “Priestesses, templars, shield-maidens.  They tried to march right in, and what did they get for it?  Dead.  So if that's your plan—“

“Look, I know it's not much yet, but we're gonna work on it, all right?  It's not like this is any crazier than the rest of the journey.”

“Yes it is!  The wraith spire, Haaraka, Akarridi—they were bad places to be, but we could still get out. 
No one comes back from the Palace.
”

“That's hog-crap.”

“How is it—“

“He's there, Fiora.  So we have to go get him.  —I have to go get him.  If you don't want to come...”

“You're the important one, Cob.  If you want to walk into a trap, I have to be there to drag you out of it.  But it would be nice if you'd, y'know,
not walk into it in the first place
.“

Pinned by her glare, Cob waffled between wanting to kiss her and wanting to shake her until her teeth rattled.  That forceful flame was what drew him to her, but sometimes he wished she'd just cooperate.

“Yeah, I know,” he said.  “But it might not be possible.”

Her shoulders loosened from their aggressive hitch, and she shook her head.  “I'm just worried.  I mean, we're surrounded by predators.  The Ravager's people.  So...”

“Speaking of being surrounded,” came Lark's voice from downhill, “look here.”

Cob half-turned to see Lark and Arik on their way back up, Arik in his chiton though his legs were still wolfish.  Lark's garments were all rumpled, but she returned a scathing glare to his inquisitive brow-raise, so he guessed it was just from bounding through the woods.

From the trees beyond came the hunting party Cob had seen leaving near the crack of dawn, long before his sparring match.

Even without knowing that mounts and riders were the same folk, it would have been strange to watch men and women ride out of the woods on huge dun-colored wolves.  The beasts were bare of saddle or harness, yet the riders perched with confidence, swaying with the motion of their steeds.  They wore the minimal garments of the wolf-folk—short breeches or loin-wraps plus a vest or loose tunic—leaving the bulk of their frames covered in fur and their feet in paw-form.  A few had hunting-bows or boar-spears, but the rest disdained weapons.