The Shield of Weeping Ghosts (21 page)

“I have magic that can wring the truth from you if you like,” he said, “but it will not be pleasant.”

She stared at him, considering her alternatives before answering. “No,” she said, slumping and shivering in obvious pain. “We came to him. Those of us who believed.”

“Why? Why is he here?” Bastun kept his voice firm, but he was not quite prepared to believe that a two-thousand-year-old prince of Narfell had drawn anything to himself but rot and dust.

“Our priests say that he searches for the Breath.” Her voice bespoke the passion and the fury she felt. “That he covets the Word, and that he will summon a cleansing flame, returning the long lost empire to our people… the bloodline… will rule again.”

Madness, Bastun thought as the woman shuddered and tensed. Her head lolled to the side, and she mumbled. He stared in wonder, looked at the bodies around them, and shook his head in disbelief.

“The Creel are as lost as we are,” he whispered. “There is no flame to summon in this place. They have no idea what they’re doing, what they’re dying for.”

“We die for the promise,” she murmured, her eyes rolling. “The old Order… twilight… failed us. Their old man is dead. Prince Serevan rises with a promise… of power.”

The moment the name was spoken Bastun grabbed his axe. Rising slowly, he watched the shadows around the woman deepen and grow thick. Tiny hands gripped her legs, little fingers digging into her flesh. The children screamed as she stirred, and her pitiful cries joined them. They roared and wrapped their chains around her, pulling themselves out of the stone and pushing themselves through her.

Bastun looked away and stepped toward the stairs, careful not to gain their attention. He could not help her, had no magic that could harm the spirits now. His quiet prayer for her quick death went unanswered. Her cries followed him down

the stairs, back to the hallway, and drifted past him to bury themselves in the pit of the tower.

He rested his hand on the Breath and stared across the pit at the long bridge. His old friends would die if he left them and took the Breath as far away as he could manage. The durthan, if she survived, would look for him. The man, the prince, or whatever it was calling himself Serevan Crell, would fail, might search for Bastun as well. The Creel tribesman would remain, hold the Shield, and perhaps convince the rest of their tribe to join them. The wychlaren would come for him, the vremyonni also. These thoughts raced through his mind, analyzing the paths and possibilities open to him.

“I would become the exile they believe me to be,” he said aloud, staring into the dark void beneath him. “Not one drop of Rashemi blood on my hands, and I would be hunted as a murderer and a traitor.”

Tiny whimpers reached him, echoing from the far side of the room. Peering into the shadow he could see the faint form of the little one, huddled against the wall and staring wide-eyed toward the gruesome scene that played out in the room at his back. She was so much like the memory of his sister—an echo of a past he could not change. A simple dare—to spy the wychlaren of the Urlingwood—had sent her away from him and forged the life he lived amid rumor and accusation. When Keffrass was slain and the Shield scrolls stolen, the groundwork of his apparent guilt had already been laid by his foolish childhood game.

He’d never mustered the courage to challenge their perceptions of him—had never cared to defend his own honor.

“This last thing,” he said, walking to ropes that still hung along the side of the pit, “then freedom.”

He grabbed the ropes, found a foothold, and edged himself along the wall.

“Win or lose. In body”—the cries of the Creel woman faded away, leaving only the wind to answer him—”or in spirit.”

Xnow, lit by the eerily silent lightning, painted the path before Thaena. She and the fang pushed through the wind and piling snow. The first of three guard towers along the west wall was hidden by a storm that slowed their march to a crawl. Duras forged a path just ahead of her. There had been a silence between them ever since their conversation in the central tower. It was a silence she was loathe to break, but she feared giving it room to grow. Between the thunder and the wind she had excuse enough not to probe the subject for now. Love or no, she could not justify stopping to mend their misunderstandings.

A feeling of dread grew within her with each step. She felt out of time and in a place she did not belong. The same could be seen on the others’ faces. The alertness of the impending threat seemed overshadowed by a growing paranoia. She had tried to attribute this to the presence of the durthan or the absence of Bastun, but she had been touched by the shadows of this place and felt the madness that hid in its walls.

The northwest tower, a tall spire of unassuming architecture, loomed in the distance.

Despite its cursed reputation, she had never suspected the Shield to be much more than as Duras had described it—just an old castle. As an extension of Rashemen’s defenses it served a vital purpose, but the city itself made its strategic value to an enemy almost negligible.

Squinting through the snow, she could barely see the outline of the first guard tower coming into focus. After a few more steps, she paused, reaching out and grabbing Duras’s arm. The procession stopped and Anilya approached from her side. Thaena held up a hand to shield her eyes from the snow, peering at the figure that stood before the tower doors.

He came closer, and she found the eyes she had seen on the bridge, ice white and full of a dull, glowing power she could not describe. He spoke, but she could not make out the words. Duras raised his sword. Syrolf walked alongside him, shouting something in his ear.

Lost in the figure’s compelling eyes, Thaena barely noticed that all the sounds around her had ceased. Anilya shook her shoulder and she did not respond. Duras turned, reaching for her and saying something, but she did not hear him. Only a gentle wind filled her mind. She knew the cloaked warrior did not see her. He looked through her and through all of them. His whispered spell was meant for another, some other time, but it found her all the same.

She stumbled to her knees, wanting to weep without knowing why. The man seemed so like herself in those moments, lost in time and doomed to wander the unknown, trying to make the world fit into neat little rows that fell apart and unraveled no matter how hard he tried. The magic that held her sat like a weight in her chest. Her senses screamed for her to stand and lead her men, but her limbs would not obey.

Duras and Anilya moved sluggishly to stand before her. The fang rushed forward with swords drawn. Flakes of snow, so swift just moments before, tumbled gently between her and the gaze that held her, crashing around her like boulders. The figure, this royal warrior of iced armor and regal bearing, gestured like a general in battle and turned with a skull-like grin on his suddenly shifting features. A lump formed in her throat as his eyes were lost and he disappeared inside the tower.

Blurs of movement caught her eye at the tower’s top. Several night black gargoyles sat in hunched poses on the crenellations. Their skin, so like the color of a clear evening sky, shimmered in the falling snow. Pale, white eyes fixed like sickly stars between long, curving horns. They trembled in place, as if reality fought to remove the nightmares that roosted in its firmament. She struggled to recognize that she was in danger, but she could not focus through the trance that gripped her.

Anilya’s hands danced on the air, twirling in the motions of magic. The fang charged as one of the beasts took wing, followed by another. Duras grabbed her shoulder, tried to bring her to her feet. He shouted words that were lost in her mind, stretched into syllables that bounced off one another into obscure, distant sounds. All she could hold onto was the image of ice blue eyes staring at her through the storm. She felt her mind crumbling.

Black wings flapped overhead, their color broken by brief slashes of sharpened steel as the battle erupted. Thaena watched as they dipped and rose, disappeared and reappeared elsewhere. One of the durthans sellswords fell screaming, a beast pinning him against the stone. It lowered its indistinct face to the flailing man, its horrible visage melting into smoke and shadow to engulf the warrior’s head. The screams were muffled. The flailing arms slowed and fell still.

Thaena rubbed her hands together in frustration, tying her fingers in knots—a habit she had not indulged since she was a child. Tears rolled from her eyes and spilled into the corners of her mouth. Her mind struggled to escape, trapped in a labyrinth of magic and false emotion. Snow, swords, and shadowy wings overwhelmed her senses. She recoiled in horror and sadness. The part of her that fought the spell, that knew what was happening, used her voice to scream. Spells slid among her thoughts with a slippery grace, swimming through the cracks of nonsense she could not banish.

Random memories of childhood asserted themselves. She

recalled running through the forests with her friends, finding insects and birds, identifying them to give names to the beasts in her world. Few butterflies visited Rashemen, save in the spring, and she did not remember any of them with wings as large and black as the creature that Duras fought a mere stride away.

They are not butterflies, she told herself. I am in danger. We are all in danger. I have to help.

Then the cold eyes overwhelmed her moment of clarity, and again she felt small and confused.

“I wish Bastun were here,” she whispered. “Bastun would know what they are.”

+ + + + +

Bastun stepped out into the howling wind, cloak pulled tight against the bite of winter, but no such chill came. He leaned into the gale, averting his eyes from the multitude of blinding flakes, and carefully crossed the bridge. Warmth spread throughout his body, and he feared the poison was not yet done with him, but there was no pain. Curious, he continued his crossing, loosening his cloak and marveling at the comfort he felt in weather known to kill the unprotected.

Once again, he gazed upon the strange ring. No Rashemi would need such protection from the winter—not that they would admit anyway. The old vremyonni bore the ring for some other purpose, something that nagged at his thoughts as he crossed the bridge.

A knot of dread rested in his stomach at the idea of rejoining the others, and he slowed. The Breath was a secret he was bound to maintain. Though he had taken the oaths as a vremyonni, there was no lack of wisdom in keeping the Shield’s secrets safe. The durthans presence was proof enough of that. His stride quickened as he contemplated how best to explain his absence. At the halfway point of the bridge, the warmth he felt was pierced by a chill at his back.

Looking over his shoulder he stared through the tower door. The darkness within the tower shifted and trembled, shreds of it licking outward into the snow. He became suddenly aware of the drop on either side of him and the distance back to the west tower. Edging his feet along, he kept a wary eye on the spirits, who had slipped through the walls and were following him again. His heart raced and his breath quickened. The children had not approached him very closely since he had gained possession of the Breath, but as his path would take him toward the Word, he feared the spirits might become bolder. The power between the two artifacts had taken every life, cursed every soul within the city to unrest.

Measuring his steps, he kept one hand on the Breath, counting on its presence to ward off their madness. Whispers and voices came to him on the wind. The spirits’ bright eyes regarded him from within their shadows, shaking and turning as if agitated. The voices grew louder, and he realized he was not listening to the children.

Shouts rang out from somewhere to his left. Through the snow he could see nothing, but the familiar hiss of blades being drawn from leather scabbards was unmistakable. Words of magic drifted in and out of focus. A man’scream pierced through the ivory haze.

Preparing to dash the remaining distance, he took once last look behind him and paled. Smoky tendrils reached out from the doorway, flowing in and out of the snow and along the sides of the bridge. Through his boots he could feel the structure vibrating. Backing away from the tendrils’ advance, he tried to think of anything that could stop them. A single voice interrupted his racing thoughts, whispering forlornly through the fog of sound that surrounded him. Most of what was said escaped him, eaten by distance and wind, but one pleading word reached his ears and sent him into a dead run for the west tower.

“… Bastun…”

The vibration in the bridge increased, and he pumped his legs as fast as he could. The snow ahead of him shifted as cracks spread through the structure. He stumbled, swearing an oath against King Arkaius and the magic he had wrought. The familiar sound of crumbling stone erupted behind him, and he cursed the paranoia that had drawn him to the Breath in the first place.

He felt one stone shift as his foot left it and he ran harder. With a held breath and a prayer he jumped.

Far below he heard the shattered bridge crashing to the ground. As his stomach slammed against the landing outside the tower and the air was forced from his lungs, he threw his weight forward. His legs swung over the edge, but he had enough purchase to pull himself forward and regain his footing.

Sounds of battle echoed from the door on his left, and he followed them. Torches flickered dimly in the storm. Men screamed and shouted oaths through the whistling wind, but Bastun’s eyes first rested on the thrashing blot of darkness kneeling on the ground just yards away. A living gargoyle torn from night’s fabric, the thing shook its victim, feeding and shaking the last vestiges of life from the body. It began to detach itself from the finished meal, its face featureless save for two wide eyes glazed over with death.

The eyes had haunted him from drawings found in dusty old tomes of vremyonni lore. The wings stretched out and shook—just as he had once imagined they would—as the embodiment of all his childhood fears raised up from his memory to regard him with hunger and a blank black visage. A nighthaunt.