When the Heavens Fall (60 page)

Footfalls sounded behind Luker. He looked over his shoulder to see Jenna picking her way toward him through the ruined buildings. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she had strapped a baldric of throwing knives across her chest. There were black bags beneath her eyes, and her movements betrayed a weariness that had nothing to do with the pace Luker had been setting. It was the Book's threads, he knew, drawing out her life force like a spider leech sucking on her blood. Luker himself had started to feel a lethargy settle on him over the past few bells, but it had lifted once he fashioned his Will into a shield against the death-magic.

Not for the first time, he was struck by how young Jenna was. The scars she'd earned in Arkarbour had aged her, yet she still looked more than a dozen years his junior. He felt those years. Jenna had never told him how old she was, but then she'd never told him anything about her life before they ran into each other on that rooftop in Mercerie. Three years ago now. Three years since she had made a shot few professionals could match. How long had she been an assassin before he met her? What had forced her into the game so young? He suspected he would never find out.

She halted in front of him. “Is this your idea of keeping watch? Sitting on a wall?”

“Ruins here means less trees, means less death-magic,” Luker said. “I'd sense the stiffs coming before I saw them.”

The assassin sat beside him. “Where are they, then, these Vamilians? After that first attack the only ones we've seen have been dead.”

“Maybe Shroud's lackeys are hurting them.”

“You reckon this'll all be over by the time we get wherever we're going?”

“Hope not.”

Jenna laughed. “After what happened on the White Road—”

“I've a thought about that,” Luker cut in.

“About how to deal with the undead?”

“Aye.”

“Well?”

“You'll see.”

The silence drew out. Luker cast a look over the settlement. The ruined building where Merin and Chamery were resting was visible through the branches of a wolsatta tree. Hobbled beneath the tree, the horses stood with heads bowed. Yesterday Luker had pressed on through the night, ignoring Merin's request for a halt until they reached this settlement a couple of bells ago. Luker had been standing guard the whole time since then. Maybe he should have woken one of the others and snatched some sleep, but he had too much on his mind to rest.

Jenna made to rise. “I'll leave you to your thoughts.”

Luker laid a hand on her arm. “No. Stay a while.”

The assassin searched his gaze for a moment, then nodded.

Feeling restless, Luker stepped down from the wall. The building of which it formed part must once have belonged to someone wealthy, for the black and white tiles of a mosaic floor were visible beneath the dirt and leaves. Beside Luker's foot was the head of a statue, its features erased by the centuries. “I've been thinking,” he said at last. “About what I'm going to do when this is over.”

“You really think you'll live through this?”

He shrugged. “Just because Merin and Chamery are going to step into Shroud's path doesn't mean I have to. I'm not here for the Book.”

“But Kanon is. You didn't come all this way just to let him stand alone.”

“Kanon can't speak my lines forever. He's always been tight with the Guardian Council. Not me, though. I could never make Kanon's cause my own, however much I might've wanted to.” It had to mean something, right? And if it didn't, he had to find something that did, no matter how long the search took. “Aye, I'll not walk out on him now, but when we're done here…”

“What will you do?”

Luker picked up one of the black mosaic tiles only for it to crumble in his fingers. “Wish I knew. Since we left Arkarbour, first time in a while I've felt … steady. Not plagued by the same old doubts.”

Jenna's expression was unreadable. “Why?”

“Maybe because I'm where I want to be. Maybe because I've not had to worry about why I'm doing what I'm doing. After I find Kanon, though…”

“You think the doubts will come back.” The assassin forced a smile. “You could always ask Kanon to run off again. After you've tracked him down, I mean.”

“Funny,” Luker said. “What about you? You thought any more about where you'll go? What you'll do?”

Jenna's smile faded. “I'm not going to get out of this alive.”

“Sure you will. Just stay close to me. I'll see you through.”

The assassin said nothing.

Luker held her gaze for a few heartbeats before looking away. “It's time we were moving. We'd best wake the others.”

*   *   *

Romany peered into the clouds of smoke that shrouded the domain of the Kinevar gods. The trees around her burned with a sorcerous heat she could feel even in her spiritual form. The threads of Romany's web were withering in the glow, and she retreated to the hanging gallery of undead, tutting all the while.

Still
she could find no way of approaching the battle between the Kinevar gods and Mayot's forces, which meant she
still
had no clear idea of how long the conflict had left to run. The sands of time were running out quickly, though, for the battlefield was now a league across at most, a fraction of the size it had been when she had last come this way three days ago. On all sides legions of undead were clawing free of their arboreal prisons as the last vestiges of earth-magic faded from the trees holding them. The tipping point in the conflict was close, Romany sensed. She had just a few bells left in which to engineer the death of her final victim before retiring from the game and leaving Mayot to the tender care of Shroud's disciples.

The clang of steel on steel interrupted her thoughts—a perception not from her spiritual body, but from her corporeal one back in Estapharriol. She paid it no mind.

Scores of Shroud's minions were now converging on Mayot's stronghold, cutting a swath through the undead hordes with their weapons of oblivion. Up until now the Vamilians, under Romany's direction, had prevented the foe from banding together in great numbers, but Shroud had responded by assembling squads of his disciples beyond the borders of the forest. Now they were on the march. The largest, a group of Black Priests under the command of an Everlord, was just thirty-five leagues west of Estapharriol, and Mayot had sent a veritable army of undead to intercept them. As a result, dozens of Shroud's other followers wandered unopposed through the more distant parts of the forest. Romany had given up trying to track them all, confining her attention to Estapharriol and the woods round it. It was a move she had been loath to make, since it meant new pieces might appear on the game board without warning, leaving her insufficient time to orchestrate a countermove. Just a handful of days ago, for instance, she had seen a small party of Fangalar enter the forest to the west and start butchering the Vamilians with reprehensible fervor. Where were they now? And why had—

The crash of weapons sounded again in the ears of her corporeal body. What
was
that racket? More to the point, why was it getting louder with each moment? Hastening back along her web to her house in Estapharriol, Romany opened her eyes. Danel sat by the far wall of the room, watching her with her unblinking gaze. The priestess rose and crossed to look out of the doorway along the west-facing wall.

In the street outside, four strangers were engaged in a frenzied clash. One of the combatants, a giant of a woman clad in blackened chain mail, was a disciple of Shroud. Shaven-headed, she had a nose that had evidently been broken so many times she'd given up trying to reset it. She carried a longsword and a shield that had been mangled into something barely recognizable. Facing her were three brown-robed figures carrying maces and figure-eight shields. Each wore his hair in a topknot and had a long plaited beard. Their flaming eyes marked them as warrior-priests of the fire god, Hamoun.

The combatants were only a dozen paces from Romany's vantage point, but she was not concerned. Thanks to the sorcerous wards she'd spun about her abode, there was no risk of the strangers seeing her, let alone stumbling inside. That being the case, and since Romany was in no hurry to return to the hanging gallery of Kinevar, perhaps she could spare a few moments to watch this drama unfold.

The swordswoman had shoulders wider than any of her three male opponents and wielded her sword with a speed that belied her bulk. This particular disciple of Shroud had proved to be something of a nuisance to Romany, having survived the three previous encounters with the undead the priestess had arranged for her. On one occasion she'd even contrived to blunder into an ambush intended for another of Shroud's minions, thereby saving the fortunate man's life, albeit temporarily. This time, to put the matter of her fate beyond doubt, Romany had enlisted the unwitting help of Hamoun's monks, all of whom remained, for now at least, among the living.

It was of course absurd that these enemies of Mayot Mencada should be fighting each other so close to where Mayot himself was holed up. Or rather it would have been were it not for the illusory threads of death-magic emerging from the chests of all four strangers—threads that Romany herself had spun just a quarter of a bell ago. She smiled. Such a simple ruse, yet the fools were clearly so accustomed to tripping over Mayot's servants that, on encountering each other earlier, they had not hesitated to attack.

Ah, and here come the Vamilians to join the fun.

The street was suddenly swarming with undead, surging from the ruins on all sides. If the swordswoman and the monks had stopped to think about it they might have wondered why the Vamilians were attacking not just them but also their erstwhile opponents.
Then again, they probably have other things on their minds just now.
The undead had driven a wedge between the four strangers, and the swordswoman retreated down a side street, leaving a trail of motionless corpses in her wake. The monks, meanwhile, were fighting with their backs to each other, wielding their maces against …

Romany blinked.

The Vamilians had thrown down their spears and were now hurling themselves at the warrior-priests with only their bare hands as weapons, seeking to seize the monks' maces or shields.

Curious.

She must have spoken the thought aloud because a moment later Danel said, “The master wants them taken alive.”

Romany looked at the girl. “What's that, my dear?”

“He bleeds them dry. The weaker ones—those not fit to be his champions. Their life force gives him back the years the Book takes from him.”

“You have seen him do this?”

“I have seen what he leaves behind. Empty husks, their owners' souls consumed.”

Romany suppressed a shudder. Yet another of the Book's powers that the Spider, in her wisdom, had not seen fit to warn her about. It seemed the old man had found a way to negate the harmful effects of the Book's death-magic on his health. His strength was growing.

The monks' maces were inflicting terrible damage on the unarmed Vamilians. A mound of twitching bodies now surrounded the warrior-priests, and it swelled as more undead fell broken beneath their attacks. Romany saw a female Vamilian clamber over her fallen kinsmen and succeed in wresting a shield from the grasp of one of the monks before a blow from his mace smashed her knees to shards. To the woman's left, a white-robed man took a mace full in the face. His skull crumpled with a wet, crunching sound, gray matter spurting between cracked bone. Somehow, though, he managed to stay on his feet, and he continued groping toward the warrior-priests, his fingers hooked into claws.

Romany tore her gaze away.

*   *   *

The expression of the Sartorian scout was hidden by the mud plastered across her face. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she kept her gaze on the ground between the hooves of Garat Hallon's horse.
But is she more concerned,
Ebon wondered,
about the news she brings, or the consel's reaction to it?

Garat took a drink from his flask. “Report!” he said at last.

“Sir, the river curls away north and south—”

“What you're telling me, soldier, is that we're trapped in a bend.”

The scout nodded. “The stiffs have already moved to cut off our retreat.”

“How many?”

She shrugged.

“Any gaps in the line? Any places we could attempt a breakout?”

Another shrug.

From beside Ebon, Vale said, “They've been herding us like lederel for the last bell.”

“I'm aware of that,” Garat said, still looking at the scout. “What I'm less clear on is how this was allowed to happen…”

Ebon did not hear his next words. A flash of light, then Galea stood before him in his mind's eye. The sleeveless white dress she'd worn previously had been replaced by a long, almost translucent gown dyed green to match the color of her eyes. She gave no greeting, but then Ebon doubted she was here to exchange pleasantries. “We're in trouble, aren't we?” he said.

“You've walked into a trap, mortal. A
geralid
mage is at your back—one of my elite from the days of empire.”

“A pity you did not think to warn us earlier.”

“Be grateful that I'm warning you at all. Were it not for me, you would soon be joining the ranks of Mayot Mencada's servants.”

Ebon struggled to hold her piercing gaze. “Are we to fight them?”

“No. I will not aid you in attacking my people.”

“Can you break the threads holding them?”

“I could. The power required to do so, however, would burn you to a crisp.”

“Then why are you here?” Ebon grated, his temper rising. “We do not have time for this.”

Galea was a long time in answering. “There is a bridge to the south and west.”