"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c27_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)
27
THE FIGHT IN
THE HALL OF THE LOST
They grappled at the edge of the frosty precipice, House Abascar and House Cent Regus, a man and a savage.
Cal-raven tumbled back, his head and shoulders hanging in open space far above the Red Teeth. The beastwoman pressed her knees into his belly and clamped a powerful clawed hand over his mouth to muffle his cry. As the grip tightened, four claws ran through Cal-raven’s cheek and scraped the edges of his teeth. Blood filled his mouth, and he choked. Rocks broke away behind him, the jagged edge receding under the pressure, and after a long fall they shattered among the sharp stalagmites below.
Cal-raven clapped his hand to his thigh and flicked a concealed knife free from its sheath, then plunged it into the beastwoman’s side. The creature threw back her head in a howl, kicking herself free. But her powerful thrust turned Cal-raven over and spun him around—his legs flailing over the cliff’s edge, his chest pressed to the failing ground. He clung to the rock, blood pouring from his face and his mouth.
The creature’s roar warped into a laugh. She sprang back to her hind legs and removed the knife.
Cal-raven looked at the beastwoman. But for the feline mouth, gangly white-haired arms, and lashing black tail, she might have been one of his own soldiers. The torn, bloodied Abascar soldier’s jacket she wore—that was just mockery.
“You won’t get out of here alive,” he spluttered through blood and dust, feeling a flicker of regret that he had left his alarm horn on the Keeper’s statue.
The beastwoman bounded forward, just like a predator cat.
Cal-raven closed his eyes, took a deep breath, let go, and fell away from the cliff.
He caught hold of the creepervine that his foot had found below. The vine held, and he hung there, taking in a sweeping view of the darkling plains. He pressed his other hand flat against the cliff face and felt for a handhold. As if in response to his attention, the rock shifted under his fingertips.
“I am a descendant of Tammos Raak,” he whispered. “I will not die at the hands of a common Cent Regus animal.” He waited for the monster to look over the edge and readied himself.
When the beastwoman did appear, she was not crawling but standing. She spat, and Cal-raven dodged, fearful of venom. The creature knelt, reaching down to pin his arm to the wall with his own knife.
Cal-raven knew he had no choice but to drop and hope for another line of creepervine to break his fall. But as he glanced down, he heard a grunt. The beastwoman above him somersaulted out into the air, screaming. As she fell past, she clutched at the wall, digging Cal-raven’s knife into the stone. The knife caught, but she could not hold on and fell. The sharp stone blades neatly sliced her to pieces.
A figure appeared at the cliff’s edge and extended a hand to help him. Cal-raven reached up, then jerked back in surprise.
A beastman—one with a wild, black mane, a broken bone protruding from his forehead, and a face of rough, porous skin—offered him a leathery hand lined with bristling red-brown hair.
“rrNo fear!” the beastman barked. “rrHelp you. Give message to Abascar king.”
Cal-raven looked down again. The fall seemed a better gamble. But then Brevolo might be up there. She might be dying in the cave from which his attacker had lunged.
Before he could decide, the beastman thrust his hand down farther, seized Cal-raven’s arm, and with strong, clawed fingers pulled him up and set him down on the dusty edge. Cal-raven spat out globs of blood.
“rrFind king of Abascar,” the beastman continued. “Give him a message.” His voice was hoarse and his accent thick and strange. But the words were unmistakable. This beastman was speaking in Common. “Cyndere. Bel Amica. rrCyndere sends message.”
Cal-raven pushed himself up onto all fours, panting. He shifted his attention from the silent, dark cave before him to the massive feet of the creature standing over him.
“rrMessage,” said the beastman. “For Abascar king. Cent Regus come. They come for Abascar.”
“Thank you,” Cal-raven answered. “And this…is for you.” He plucked out his knife and thrust it down through the beastman’s hairy foot, jerked it out, and plunged it through again. Then he rose and sprinted forward into the cave.
Behind him, the beastman muffled a roar. Sending power through his fingertips, Cal-raven drew a sharp stalactite from the ceiling, held it like a sword, and channeled more of the magic to mold a hilt from its broken end. Then he fled like a rabbit through the warren that opened beyond this cave.
The beastman came after him. With every corner he turned, Cal-raven led his pursuer further into the network of Abascar’s hideaways, looking for an advantage.
Jordam limped into the cave, painting a stripe of blood along the ground. As shadows sharpened in detail, revealing a narrow break in the corner and a round window high on the back wall, his ears twitched, and his nostrils flared. The survivors of House Abascar were hiding in here.
His ears flicked backward as he advanced. The man wanted him to follow, probably to lure him into an ambush. Every instinct within him screamed retreat. But this man could reach King Cal-raven of House Abascar. And Jordam hated the thought of failing Bel again.
A voice called out, baiting Jordam. “I’m right here, Cent Regus. You think you can trick me. But Cal-raven is a good king. He remembers the hands that shed Abascar’s blood.”
Jordam leaned against the wall, listening to the voice emerging through that high window. He wished for a drop of that Bel Amican poison, just enough to erase the feeling in his wounded foot. Growling against the pain, he climbed through the window and down into a hollow, then scrambled on all fours after the flicker of shadow in the narrow crevasse ahead.
He emerged into a cavern where stony platforms rose to varying heights—giant mushroom columns of stone growing into and out of each other. He surveyed the myriad hovels and holes.
“You say Cent Regus are coming?” the voice continued.
The question surrounded him, ricocheting from walls, whispering in the mouths and eyes and ears of the cave. Jordam stepped forward, clearly visible to the man, wherever he was. And then he saw it, a faint cloud of breath emerging from a space between pillars on the far wall. A rope ladder rose from that place to a vent near the ceiling.
“rrFire,” he barked. “Animals make no fire.” Jordam edged along the side of the cave and wrapped himself in shadow beneath a stony overhang. “Cent Regus saw torchlights. rrTorchlights in caves. Scouts come. Plan to hunt Abascar people. I followed.” He leaned back against the stone, dizzy and weak, and ripped off a long strip of his woodscloak to tie around his bleeding foot. “Message for Cal-raven. Help Abascar.” He tightened the strip, then beat his fist against the ground, for the resulting wave of pain made it feel as if the knife had gone into his head.
“I will not take you to Cal-raven,” said the man, “unless you tell me more.” His voice came from higher up the wall. He was climbing toward an escape. Jordam could smell his sweat and blood. But he could smell something else as well. Incense. Flowers. He was still being led toward something he could not imagine. The trap was not yet sprung.
“rrCyndere Bel Amica sends message. Many Cent Regus. Hunting Abascar. Here on these cliffs. Soon.” With that, Jordam ran across the crowded cave to the hanging ladder and began to climb. The man was already gone, but there was blood on the floor and splashed across the wall where he had spit.
Reaching the top and worming his way through a hole, Jordam emerged into an even larger cave under a high, arching dome. What he saw there almost scared him back into the hole.
Before him stood a host of stone people. There were hundreds. Crowns of flowers encircled their heads. Small curls of incense wafted through the air from bowls at their feet. Their stony skins were painted. Some were detailed, with sculpted faces, while others were abstract and simple. He recognized soldiers, children, shepherds, harvesters, miners. Some had cloaks of woven grass and leaves draped about their shoulders, as if to warm them in the cold.
“Do you see this?” The man stood at the far end of the host, standing between two regal figures and leaning wearily on their shoulders. One of them, a thin and stately statue costumed as a king with a shield slung over his shoulder and a sword strapped to his side. The other, a proud queen with a sweeping gown and wildflowers in her hands. Behind the statues, a crude stair rose to lanternlight.
“Abascar,” said Jordam. “People of Abascar. Dead.”
“Yes. Many are dead. Some were killed by Cent Regus beastmen. But no more.” The man drew the sword of the king’s statue and advanced toward the beastman. “I plan to even the score.”
Jordam raised his hands and backed away. “Come to warn the king. Abascar, danger!”
The man did not slow down.
Jordam got down on his knees. “rrI protect Cyndere Bel Amica. Cyndere says Cal-raven will listen if I say ‘O-raya.’ If I say ‘ale boy.’ ”
The man stopped two paces away, teeth flaring white through his blood-masked face.
“O-raya helped me. Colors…colors made me better. Now I help Cyndere Bel Amica. She wants to help you.”
“I don’t believe you.” The man lifted the sword and brought it down. But he swung too hard, his reach too far, an awkward strike driven by rage and confusion. Jordam easily dodged it, falling forward to embrace the prince, bringing him to the floor. They tumbled together. Jordam seized the man’s wrists and squeezed to the point of breaking the bones. The sword fell free. Jordam released him, picked up the sword, and cast it to the wall. As the man waited for a killing blow, Jordam retreated into the rows of statues.
He sat down behind the proud figure of a high-ranking soldier, noting that this distinguished figure had three fingers on a hand that was raised to his brow as if he were searching for a threat.
He could hear the man searching for him among the statues. He held still. The footsteps moved farther away. Jordam stood up to risk a glance. The man, having recovered his sword, ascended a stair on the far wall toward the open ground at the top of the highest cliffs.
“No games,” the man shouted. “You know about the ale boy. You know about Auralia. But you’re a beastman. And a liar.”
Jordam risked one more glance and then bolted down the row. The man saw him, leapt from the stairway, and landed running to meet him. Jordam reached the statue of the old king, and he had just enough time to seize and lift the ornamental battle shield from the statue’s shoulder and bring it around to block Cal-raven’s strike.
Cal-raven smashed the sword into the shield again and again, and Jordam blocked each blow. The cave clattered with their struggle.
“Drop my father’s shield.”
The words hit Jordam even harder than the heavy strikes of the sword. “Your…father?”
The man barked a defiant laugh, lunged, and scraped the edge of Jordam’s ankle. But this time Jordam did not just block the blow—he jabbed his assailant with the edge of the shield and sent him reeling backward with a bloody gash on his forehead.
Nostrils flaring, Jordam growled with the hunger rising within him. The king of Abascar lay before him, and the opportunity kindled his pride and bloodlust. He clutched at his chest as if he could seize the Essence and tear it out through his skin. And then he pounced on Cal-raven and pinned his sword arm to the ground with the edge of the shield.
Seething into the man’s face, he sprayed desperate words. “Again, I could kill you. rrBrothers…would kill you. Will kill you when they come. Cent Regus kill Abascar’s people. But not me. rrNot Jordam. Not today.”
He reached for Cal-raven’s throat to silence his voice. “Listen.” He commanded himself to continue, to restrain his appetite and finish his mission. His fingers closed around Cal-raven’s broad, woven neckband and tore it free. Beads scattered from it and rolled across the floor. “O-raya.” Jordam held up the broken band.
“Yes,” Cal-raven sneered. “The ale boy gave it to me.”
“I…watched her make colors.”
“You are a liar.”
“rrLook.” Jordam held it close to him. “Look.” He waved the frayed edge in front of Cal-raven’s face, then tugged at a tangle of his own black mane. “O-raya cut this.”
Cal-raven furrowed his brow, tugged at his pinned arm, and shook his head. “But you’re a beastman.”
“They come in two nights. Many Cent Regus.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Cal-raven, but his resistance was slackening.
“rrThey swarm in the trees. I saw them. They watch Abascar. Lights. Shadows. They know where Abascar goes in, where Abascar goes out.”
“You cannot fight together. You’re crazy animals.”
Jordam did not understand crazy. But he caught the point. “rrMordafey brings many Cent Regus. Mordafey promised them reward. Big stranger, white rags…leads them.” He pointed to himself. “Jordam got away. Come to tell you. For Cyndere. rrCent Regus come, not tonight. Tomorrow night. Hide away, Abascar people.”
Cal-raven lay still and speechless.
Jordam lifted the shield and stood.
When the king spoke again, each word was burdened with uncertainty. “How do we stop them, Jordam?”
“Don’t let them get in. They bring…dangers. They get in, all goes bad.”
“That’s Cyndere’s message?”
“More. Cyndere tells Cal-raven—don’t trust Bel Amica. rrTrust only Cyndere.” Jordam felt a rising sense of relief with every word he conveyed to the helpless Abascar man. “Come to Cyndere. She will help.”
“We’ve received an offer of help from Bel Amica. From a Seer.”
“Cyndere helps Abascar like O-raya helped me. Makes good what hurt. rrGives Abascar a safe place. Food. Help.”
Cal-raven laughed and laid his head back, reaching out his splayed left hand and pressing it against the stone. “I will listen to Cyndere. I won’t trust anybody.” He narrowed his eyes and smiled. “And that includes you.”
Jordam felt the floor ripple beneath him. What was stone became sand. His right foot sank into the hot, disintegrating floor. As he fell, he lunged forward with his left foot, but that punched through the ground as if he had stumbled into a bog. He looked up at Cal-raven and gasped, “Help.”
The king’s face purpled with exertion. Sweat ran down his brow in rivers. His arm trembled. Spreading out from the points where his fingertips met the floor, the stone softened until the ground all around Jordam’s feet sank into sand. Jordam clawed at the molten floor, seeking a hold on the firmer ground where Cal-raven lay. But he could not reach it.
Instead, he groped for something to seize the king’s attention. “Abascar queen!” Jordam gasped, but in his panic, he spoke in the crude beastman tongue. Frantic, he sought for a word in Common to inform Cal-raven that the former Abascar queen was imprisoned in the Cent Regus lair.
Cal-raven twisted, his left hand fixed to the floor, and put his right hand alongside it. “We will bury you. All of you.” As if he were smoothing out a blanket, Cal-raven shoved the ground, projecting a wave that liquefied the floor before him. Jordam’s last glimpse of the king was a fierce, contorted grin of triumph before the floor closed over his head.
Jordam sank fast in a fall of sand. And then his kicking feet broke through into open space. He wriggled like a fish and fell.
In a rush of falling debris, Jordam plunged into the cavern beneath the hall of statues. He plummeted toward a stone pedestal, and the edge of it struck what was left of his browbone, cleaving it from his forehead. The blow tumbled him like a falling twig through the high boughs of a forest. He crashed to the top of another stone mushroom, bounced down to another, which caught him in the ribs and knocked his breath out. Flailing, he fell the rest of the distance to thud against the hard floor, where mounds of falling, liquefied stone plastered his face before his wounds could bleed, burying him half alive.
“Kramm.” Cal-raven tried to see through the hole he had opened in the cavern floor. It was too great a distance to jump. Leaning on one statue, then another, he made his way across the cave to the crevasse in the wall, anxious to learn the fate of the fallen beastman.
He had meant to cut the magic short and let the stone solidify, trapping the beastman in the floor. The kill would have been easy then. Scharr ben Fray could have done this without much effort.
He lightly touched the scabs along his cheeks where the beastwoman’s claws had pierced his face. If she had pressed those claws to his temples or his throat, things might have gone differently. He touched the spots on his neck where Jordam’s claws had barely left a scratch. But the neckband that the ale boy had sent with a message—“Do not let the people forget about Auralia”—was gone. The band that Auralia had woven with the hair of a beastman.
The king of House Abascar hesitated, fighting to regain his breath. The room spun, the ground’s pull almost irresistible. It was the stonemastery. Night after night he had endured his sleeplessness by working himself to exhaustion manifesting likenesses of Abascar’s fallen in the Hall of the Lost. Once they began to emerge from the stone, what had begun as an impulse became an obsession. With each face, each name, he renewed his promises—to make something strong out of broken pieces. The dead of Abascar stared back—some expressionless, some proud, some blank, some lifelike—a question in their stillness. They wondered if he would finish what he had started or if he would leave them like this.
During a few short days that lied about spring’s arrival, he had found a sculpted message in the forest—his old teacher, Scharr ben Fray, was alive and would meet him soon with counsel. The message had inspired him, bringing back the stories he had first learned from the old man’s lessons. So he had sought a blank canvas on which to shape a new figure in the open air. In a surge of longing, he returned to that shape he had crafted over and over again in his childhood but this time on a larger scale. He shaped the outline of the Keeper until he was so exhausted he could hardly think.
Unleashing that blast against the beastman had called up strength he did not know he could muster. He had strained every sinew, and something in the back of his mind had burnt out. He clung to consciousness, but sleep’s grip was powerful. Sweat began to chill down his back, across his brow. He needed dry, warm clothes. Bandages for his wounds. And strength.
But there was a beastman down below. In a cave not far from chambers inhabited by Abascar’s people.
Cal-raven urged himself down the narrow stair, which seemed so much longer than before. Clambering down the rope ladder, he cursed the alarms that blared in his shoulders and back. He scanned the shadows, hoping to find some sign of the creature.
Ribbons of blood trailed out of the cavern, into the crevasse, and pooled below the window in the entry cave. Then they continued out the open mouth of the cave and into the dusk, blurring into the scene of their struggle on the ledge. The creature had dragged himself out on all fours.
At the edge of the cliff, the battle-scarred shield of Cal-raven’s father rested against a boulder. The king touched six new scars on its shining face, cleft by his own sword. “I’m sorry, Father.” Draped over the edge of its shining disc hung the broken strand of his neckband. The colors gleamed as if mirroring a sunset from a world where it was summer.
He gazed down to the Red Teeth and then looked up to find Tabor Jan trying to make sense of the scene. The captain’s eyes ran across the ripped-up ground, the blood splatter, and the sight of his battered king. He unsheathed his sword.
“Just in time!” Cal-raven coughed. Then, regretting that, he changed the subject. “Where’s Brevolo?”
“What happened?” Tabor Jan crouched to survey the ground. “A beastman!”
“Two. One dead. The other…probably dying.”
The captain stood, pressing his hand to his brocaded shieldvest. “I’ve failed you. I should not have let you—”
“The fault’s mine. I wandered off without guards. But Brevolo—”
“Safe. You didn’t catch her, so she came back to the statue. My lord, you’re unarmed!”
“One Cent Regus killed the other. Then he ran away.” Cal-raven sank down, leaned against the boulder, finally crumbling under the weight of realization. “I was careless. I almost lost myself. I almost lost all of us.”
“Are we safe?” The guardsman paced the ledge.
“No. More beastmen. And soon.” He shouted in surprise as if some invisible hand reached into his belly and squeezed. Gasping, he doubled over.
Tabor Jan eased him to his feet. “We’re going to see Say-ressa.”
“Everyone,” he rasped, “must burrow in. Deep. Double the night watch. Assemble the defenders. We’ve much to do before tomorrow’s sunset.”
“Then you already know,” said Tabor Jan. “You know what I’ve seen.”
“The farglass,” Cal-raven muttered. “You saw more than one beastman. Kramm.” He watched two circling brascles, drifting feathers of shadow against the sky. “Their spies are here already. Jordam told the truth.”
“Who?”
“There’s an army of beastmen, Tabor Jan. Tomorrow night House Cent Regus is coming for us. Led by someone called Mordafey. The world is changing, and we’re not ready. We have to—”
“Close the tunnels. But no more. We can’t fight back, Cal-raven. You know that. If we fight too soon, we’ll lose those who can train others.” Tabor Jan looked out to the forest. “Who told you this?”
“That’s a tale for a long night with a big fire and all the ale that Abascar can brew.”
“My king, our plans… We’re supposed to set out tonight. The Bel Amican.”
“Tonight. Of course. The Seer. The supplies. He’ll be waiting, and we won’t be there. By the bloody bones of Tammos Raak, Tabor Jan, it won’t work. We can’t go out to meet him. I need—”
“You need to sleep. You need to heal. That beastman tried to rip your face off.”
Cal-raven stumbled, spit more blood into the dust. “White rags,” he whispered.
“What?”
“White rags. Mordafey’s working for something the beastman called a ‘big stranger.’ ” Cal-raven looked into Tabor Jan’s confounded expression. “Ballyworms, Tabor Jan. It was all a lie. The Seer…he’s luring us out. Making us vulnerable. It’s a trap.”
27
THE FIGHT IN
THE HALL OF THE LOST
They grappled at the edge of the frosty precipice, House Abascar and House Cent Regus, a man and a savage.
Cal-raven tumbled back, his head and shoulders hanging in open space far above the Red Teeth. The beastwoman pressed her knees into his belly and clamped a powerful clawed hand over his mouth to muffle his cry. As the grip tightened, four claws ran through Cal-raven’s cheek and scraped the edges of his teeth. Blood filled his mouth, and he choked. Rocks broke away behind him, the jagged edge receding under the pressure, and after a long fall they shattered among the sharp stalagmites below.
Cal-raven clapped his hand to his thigh and flicked a concealed knife free from its sheath, then plunged it into the beastwoman’s side. The creature threw back her head in a howl, kicking herself free. But her powerful thrust turned Cal-raven over and spun him around—his legs flailing over the cliff’s edge, his chest pressed to the failing ground. He clung to the rock, blood pouring from his face and his mouth.
The creature’s roar warped into a laugh. She sprang back to her hind legs and removed the knife.
Cal-raven looked at the beastwoman. But for the feline mouth, gangly white-haired arms, and lashing black tail, she might have been one of his own soldiers. The torn, bloodied Abascar soldier’s jacket she wore—that was just mockery.
“You won’t get out of here alive,” he spluttered through blood and dust, feeling a flicker of regret that he had left his alarm horn on the Keeper’s statue.
The beastwoman bounded forward, just like a predator cat.
Cal-raven closed his eyes, took a deep breath, let go, and fell away from the cliff.
He caught hold of the creepervine that his foot had found below. The vine held, and he hung there, taking in a sweeping view of the darkling plains. He pressed his other hand flat against the cliff face and felt for a handhold. As if in response to his attention, the rock shifted under his fingertips.
“I am a descendant of Tammos Raak,” he whispered. “I will not die at the hands of a common Cent Regus animal.” He waited for the monster to look over the edge and readied himself.
When the beastwoman did appear, she was not crawling but standing. She spat, and Cal-raven dodged, fearful of venom. The creature knelt, reaching down to pin his arm to the wall with his own knife.
Cal-raven knew he had no choice but to drop and hope for another line of creepervine to break his fall. But as he glanced down, he heard a grunt. The beastwoman above him somersaulted out into the air, screaming. As she fell past, she clutched at the wall, digging Cal-raven’s knife into the stone. The knife caught, but she could not hold on and fell. The sharp stone blades neatly sliced her to pieces.
A figure appeared at the cliff’s edge and extended a hand to help him. Cal-raven reached up, then jerked back in surprise.
A beastman—one with a wild, black mane, a broken bone protruding from his forehead, and a face of rough, porous skin—offered him a leathery hand lined with bristling red-brown hair.
“rrNo fear!” the beastman barked. “rrHelp you. Give message to Abascar king.”
Cal-raven looked down again. The fall seemed a better gamble. But then Brevolo might be up there. She might be dying in the cave from which his attacker had lunged.
Before he could decide, the beastman thrust his hand down farther, seized Cal-raven’s arm, and with strong, clawed fingers pulled him up and set him down on the dusty edge. Cal-raven spat out globs of blood.
“rrFind king of Abascar,” the beastman continued. “Give him a message.” His voice was hoarse and his accent thick and strange. But the words were unmistakable. This beastman was speaking in Common. “Cyndere. Bel Amica. rrCyndere sends message.”
Cal-raven pushed himself up onto all fours, panting. He shifted his attention from the silent, dark cave before him to the massive feet of the creature standing over him.
“rrMessage,” said the beastman. “For Abascar king. Cent Regus come. They come for Abascar.”
“Thank you,” Cal-raven answered. “And this…is for you.” He plucked out his knife and thrust it down through the beastman’s hairy foot, jerked it out, and plunged it through again. Then he rose and sprinted forward into the cave.
Behind him, the beastman muffled a roar. Sending power through his fingertips, Cal-raven drew a sharp stalactite from the ceiling, held it like a sword, and channeled more of the magic to mold a hilt from its broken end. Then he fled like a rabbit through the warren that opened beyond this cave.
The beastman came after him. With every corner he turned, Cal-raven led his pursuer further into the network of Abascar’s hideaways, looking for an advantage.
Jordam limped into the cave, painting a stripe of blood along the ground. As shadows sharpened in detail, revealing a narrow break in the corner and a round window high on the back wall, his ears twitched, and his nostrils flared. The survivors of House Abascar were hiding in here.
His ears flicked backward as he advanced. The man wanted him to follow, probably to lure him into an ambush. Every instinct within him screamed retreat. But this man could reach King Cal-raven of House Abascar. And Jordam hated the thought of failing Bel again.
A voice called out, baiting Jordam. “I’m right here, Cent Regus. You think you can trick me. But Cal-raven is a good king. He remembers the hands that shed Abascar’s blood.”
Jordam leaned against the wall, listening to the voice emerging through that high window. He wished for a drop of that Bel Amican poison, just enough to erase the feeling in his wounded foot. Growling against the pain, he climbed through the window and down into a hollow, then scrambled on all fours after the flicker of shadow in the narrow crevasse ahead.
He emerged into a cavern where stony platforms rose to varying heights—giant mushroom columns of stone growing into and out of each other. He surveyed the myriad hovels and holes.
“You say Cent Regus are coming?” the voice continued.
The question surrounded him, ricocheting from walls, whispering in the mouths and eyes and ears of the cave. Jordam stepped forward, clearly visible to the man, wherever he was. And then he saw it, a faint cloud of breath emerging from a space between pillars on the far wall. A rope ladder rose from that place to a vent near the ceiling.
“rrFire,” he barked. “Animals make no fire.” Jordam edged along the side of the cave and wrapped himself in shadow beneath a stony overhang. “Cent Regus saw torchlights. rrTorchlights in caves. Scouts come. Plan to hunt Abascar people. I followed.” He leaned back against the stone, dizzy and weak, and ripped off a long strip of his woodscloak to tie around his bleeding foot. “Message for Cal-raven. Help Abascar.” He tightened the strip, then beat his fist against the ground, for the resulting wave of pain made it feel as if the knife had gone into his head.
“I will not take you to Cal-raven,” said the man, “unless you tell me more.” His voice came from higher up the wall. He was climbing toward an escape. Jordam could smell his sweat and blood. But he could smell something else as well. Incense. Flowers. He was still being led toward something he could not imagine. The trap was not yet sprung.
“rrCyndere Bel Amica sends message. Many Cent Regus. Hunting Abascar. Here on these cliffs. Soon.” With that, Jordam ran across the crowded cave to the hanging ladder and began to climb. The man was already gone, but there was blood on the floor and splashed across the wall where he had spit.
Reaching the top and worming his way through a hole, Jordam emerged into an even larger cave under a high, arching dome. What he saw there almost scared him back into the hole.
Before him stood a host of stone people. There were hundreds. Crowns of flowers encircled their heads. Small curls of incense wafted through the air from bowls at their feet. Their stony skins were painted. Some were detailed, with sculpted faces, while others were abstract and simple. He recognized soldiers, children, shepherds, harvesters, miners. Some had cloaks of woven grass and leaves draped about their shoulders, as if to warm them in the cold.
“Do you see this?” The man stood at the far end of the host, standing between two regal figures and leaning wearily on their shoulders. One of them, a thin and stately statue costumed as a king with a shield slung over his shoulder and a sword strapped to his side. The other, a proud queen with a sweeping gown and wildflowers in her hands. Behind the statues, a crude stair rose to lanternlight.
“Abascar,” said Jordam. “People of Abascar. Dead.”
“Yes. Many are dead. Some were killed by Cent Regus beastmen. But no more.” The man drew the sword of the king’s statue and advanced toward the beastman. “I plan to even the score.”
Jordam raised his hands and backed away. “Come to warn the king. Abascar, danger!”
The man did not slow down.
Jordam got down on his knees. “rrI protect Cyndere Bel Amica. Cyndere says Cal-raven will listen if I say ‘O-raya.’ If I say ‘ale boy.’ ”
The man stopped two paces away, teeth flaring white through his blood-masked face.
“O-raya helped me. Colors…colors made me better. Now I help Cyndere Bel Amica. She wants to help you.”
“I don’t believe you.” The man lifted the sword and brought it down. But he swung too hard, his reach too far, an awkward strike driven by rage and confusion. Jordam easily dodged it, falling forward to embrace the prince, bringing him to the floor. They tumbled together. Jordam seized the man’s wrists and squeezed to the point of breaking the bones. The sword fell free. Jordam released him, picked up the sword, and cast it to the wall. As the man waited for a killing blow, Jordam retreated into the rows of statues.
He sat down behind the proud figure of a high-ranking soldier, noting that this distinguished figure had three fingers on a hand that was raised to his brow as if he were searching for a threat.
He could hear the man searching for him among the statues. He held still. The footsteps moved farther away. Jordam stood up to risk a glance. The man, having recovered his sword, ascended a stair on the far wall toward the open ground at the top of the highest cliffs.
“No games,” the man shouted. “You know about the ale boy. You know about Auralia. But you’re a beastman. And a liar.”
Jordam risked one more glance and then bolted down the row. The man saw him, leapt from the stairway, and landed running to meet him. Jordam reached the statue of the old king, and he had just enough time to seize and lift the ornamental battle shield from the statue’s shoulder and bring it around to block Cal-raven’s strike.
Cal-raven smashed the sword into the shield again and again, and Jordam blocked each blow. The cave clattered with their struggle.
“Drop my father’s shield.”
The words hit Jordam even harder than the heavy strikes of the sword. “Your…father?”
The man barked a defiant laugh, lunged, and scraped the edge of Jordam’s ankle. But this time Jordam did not just block the blow—he jabbed his assailant with the edge of the shield and sent him reeling backward with a bloody gash on his forehead.
Nostrils flaring, Jordam growled with the hunger rising within him. The king of Abascar lay before him, and the opportunity kindled his pride and bloodlust. He clutched at his chest as if he could seize the Essence and tear it out through his skin. And then he pounced on Cal-raven and pinned his sword arm to the ground with the edge of the shield.
Seething into the man’s face, he sprayed desperate words. “Again, I could kill you. rrBrothers…would kill you. Will kill you when they come. Cent Regus kill Abascar’s people. But not me. rrNot Jordam. Not today.”
He reached for Cal-raven’s throat to silence his voice. “Listen.” He commanded himself to continue, to restrain his appetite and finish his mission. His fingers closed around Cal-raven’s broad, woven neckband and tore it free. Beads scattered from it and rolled across the floor. “O-raya.” Jordam held up the broken band.
“Yes,” Cal-raven sneered. “The ale boy gave it to me.”
“I…watched her make colors.”
“You are a liar.”
“rrLook.” Jordam held it close to him. “Look.” He waved the frayed edge in front of Cal-raven’s face, then tugged at a tangle of his own black mane. “O-raya cut this.”
Cal-raven furrowed his brow, tugged at his pinned arm, and shook his head. “But you’re a beastman.”
“They come in two nights. Many Cent Regus.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Cal-raven, but his resistance was slackening.
“rrThey swarm in the trees. I saw them. They watch Abascar. Lights. Shadows. They know where Abascar goes in, where Abascar goes out.”
“You cannot fight together. You’re crazy animals.”
Jordam did not understand crazy. But he caught the point. “rrMordafey brings many Cent Regus. Mordafey promised them reward. Big stranger, white rags…leads them.” He pointed to himself. “Jordam got away. Come to tell you. For Cyndere. rrCent Regus come, not tonight. Tomorrow night. Hide away, Abascar people.”
Cal-raven lay still and speechless.
Jordam lifted the shield and stood.
When the king spoke again, each word was burdened with uncertainty. “How do we stop them, Jordam?”
“Don’t let them get in. They bring…dangers. They get in, all goes bad.”
“That’s Cyndere’s message?”
“More. Cyndere tells Cal-raven—don’t trust Bel Amica. rrTrust only Cyndere.” Jordam felt a rising sense of relief with every word he conveyed to the helpless Abascar man. “Come to Cyndere. She will help.”
“We’ve received an offer of help from Bel Amica. From a Seer.”
“Cyndere helps Abascar like O-raya helped me. Makes good what hurt. rrGives Abascar a safe place. Food. Help.”
Cal-raven laughed and laid his head back, reaching out his splayed left hand and pressing it against the stone. “I will listen to Cyndere. I won’t trust anybody.” He narrowed his eyes and smiled. “And that includes you.”
Jordam felt the floor ripple beneath him. What was stone became sand. His right foot sank into the hot, disintegrating floor. As he fell, he lunged forward with his left foot, but that punched through the ground as if he had stumbled into a bog. He looked up at Cal-raven and gasped, “Help.”
The king’s face purpled with exertion. Sweat ran down his brow in rivers. His arm trembled. Spreading out from the points where his fingertips met the floor, the stone softened until the ground all around Jordam’s feet sank into sand. Jordam clawed at the molten floor, seeking a hold on the firmer ground where Cal-raven lay. But he could not reach it.
Instead, he groped for something to seize the king’s attention. “Abascar queen!” Jordam gasped, but in his panic, he spoke in the crude beastman tongue. Frantic, he sought for a word in Common to inform Cal-raven that the former Abascar queen was imprisoned in the Cent Regus lair.
Cal-raven twisted, his left hand fixed to the floor, and put his right hand alongside it. “We will bury you. All of you.” As if he were smoothing out a blanket, Cal-raven shoved the ground, projecting a wave that liquefied the floor before him. Jordam’s last glimpse of the king was a fierce, contorted grin of triumph before the floor closed over his head.
Jordam sank fast in a fall of sand. And then his kicking feet broke through into open space. He wriggled like a fish and fell.
In a rush of falling debris, Jordam plunged into the cavern beneath the hall of statues. He plummeted toward a stone pedestal, and the edge of it struck what was left of his browbone, cleaving it from his forehead. The blow tumbled him like a falling twig through the high boughs of a forest. He crashed to the top of another stone mushroom, bounced down to another, which caught him in the ribs and knocked his breath out. Flailing, he fell the rest of the distance to thud against the hard floor, where mounds of falling, liquefied stone plastered his face before his wounds could bleed, burying him half alive.
“Kramm.” Cal-raven tried to see through the hole he had opened in the cavern floor. It was too great a distance to jump. Leaning on one statue, then another, he made his way across the cave to the crevasse in the wall, anxious to learn the fate of the fallen beastman.
He had meant to cut the magic short and let the stone solidify, trapping the beastman in the floor. The kill would have been easy then. Scharr ben Fray could have done this without much effort.
He lightly touched the scabs along his cheeks where the beastwoman’s claws had pierced his face. If she had pressed those claws to his temples or his throat, things might have gone differently. He touched the spots on his neck where Jordam’s claws had barely left a scratch. But the neckband that the ale boy had sent with a message—“Do not let the people forget about Auralia”—was gone. The band that Auralia had woven with the hair of a beastman.
The king of House Abascar hesitated, fighting to regain his breath. The room spun, the ground’s pull almost irresistible. It was the stonemastery. Night after night he had endured his sleeplessness by working himself to exhaustion manifesting likenesses of Abascar’s fallen in the Hall of the Lost. Once they began to emerge from the stone, what had begun as an impulse became an obsession. With each face, each name, he renewed his promises—to make something strong out of broken pieces. The dead of Abascar stared back—some expressionless, some proud, some blank, some lifelike—a question in their stillness. They wondered if he would finish what he had started or if he would leave them like this.
During a few short days that lied about spring’s arrival, he had found a sculpted message in the forest—his old teacher, Scharr ben Fray, was alive and would meet him soon with counsel. The message had inspired him, bringing back the stories he had first learned from the old man’s lessons. So he had sought a blank canvas on which to shape a new figure in the open air. In a surge of longing, he returned to that shape he had crafted over and over again in his childhood but this time on a larger scale. He shaped the outline of the Keeper until he was so exhausted he could hardly think.
Unleashing that blast against the beastman had called up strength he did not know he could muster. He had strained every sinew, and something in the back of his mind had burnt out. He clung to consciousness, but sleep’s grip was powerful. Sweat began to chill down his back, across his brow. He needed dry, warm clothes. Bandages for his wounds. And strength.
But there was a beastman down below. In a cave not far from chambers inhabited by Abascar’s people.
Cal-raven urged himself down the narrow stair, which seemed so much longer than before. Clambering down the rope ladder, he cursed the alarms that blared in his shoulders and back. He scanned the shadows, hoping to find some sign of the creature.
Ribbons of blood trailed out of the cavern, into the crevasse, and pooled below the window in the entry cave. Then they continued out the open mouth of the cave and into the dusk, blurring into the scene of their struggle on the ledge. The creature had dragged himself out on all fours.
At the edge of the cliff, the battle-scarred shield of Cal-raven’s father rested against a boulder. The king touched six new scars on its shining face, cleft by his own sword. “I’m sorry, Father.” Draped over the edge of its shining disc hung the broken strand of his neckband. The colors gleamed as if mirroring a sunset from a world where it was summer.
He gazed down to the Red Teeth and then looked up to find Tabor Jan trying to make sense of the scene. The captain’s eyes ran across the ripped-up ground, the blood splatter, and the sight of his battered king. He unsheathed his sword.
“Just in time!” Cal-raven coughed. Then, regretting that, he changed the subject. “Where’s Brevolo?”
“What happened?” Tabor Jan crouched to survey the ground. “A beastman!”
“Two. One dead. The other…probably dying.”
The captain stood, pressing his hand to his brocaded shieldvest. “I’ve failed you. I should not have let you—”
“The fault’s mine. I wandered off without guards. But Brevolo—”
“Safe. You didn’t catch her, so she came back to the statue. My lord, you’re unarmed!”
“One Cent Regus killed the other. Then he ran away.” Cal-raven sank down, leaned against the boulder, finally crumbling under the weight of realization. “I was careless. I almost lost myself. I almost lost all of us.”
“Are we safe?” The guardsman paced the ledge.
“No. More beastmen. And soon.” He shouted in surprise as if some invisible hand reached into his belly and squeezed. Gasping, he doubled over.
Tabor Jan eased him to his feet. “We’re going to see Say-ressa.”
“Everyone,” he rasped, “must burrow in. Deep. Double the night watch. Assemble the defenders. We’ve much to do before tomorrow’s sunset.”
“Then you already know,” said Tabor Jan. “You know what I’ve seen.”
“The farglass,” Cal-raven muttered. “You saw more than one beastman. Kramm.” He watched two circling brascles, drifting feathers of shadow against the sky. “Their spies are here already. Jordam told the truth.”
“Who?”
“There’s an army of beastmen, Tabor Jan. Tomorrow night House Cent Regus is coming for us. Led by someone called Mordafey. The world is changing, and we’re not ready. We have to—”
“Close the tunnels. But no more. We can’t fight back, Cal-raven. You know that. If we fight too soon, we’ll lose those who can train others.” Tabor Jan looked out to the forest. “Who told you this?”
“That’s a tale for a long night with a big fire and all the ale that Abascar can brew.”
“My king, our plans… We’re supposed to set out tonight. The Bel Amican.”
“Tonight. Of course. The Seer. The supplies. He’ll be waiting, and we won’t be there. By the bloody bones of Tammos Raak, Tabor Jan, it won’t work. We can’t go out to meet him. I need—”
“You need to sleep. You need to heal. That beastman tried to rip your face off.”
Cal-raven stumbled, spit more blood into the dust. “White rags,” he whispered.
“What?”
“White rags. Mordafey’s working for something the beastman called a ‘big stranger.’ ” Cal-raven looked into Tabor Jan’s confounded expression. “Ballyworms, Tabor Jan. It was all a lie. The Seer…he’s luring us out. Making us vulnerable. It’s a trap.”
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