by Dave Gross
None of them could see as well in the dark as I could. None of them knew that Kazyah was the oracle’s mother, not his daughter. But just by the way she told the story, they had to have heard the truth in it.
Illyria and Eando talked magic business for a little while. She’d used magic plenty on the journey, both in fights and in little ways like the conjured driver or fixing Janneke’s crumpled helmet, but we hadn’t seen much of her necromancer juju. Starting tomorrow, they decided, she could no longer hold back.
“It isn’t something I’ve often done outside the Acadamae,” she explained. “And after the way Varian reacted when I sowed those ghoul’s teeth…”
“Jeggare hasn’t exactly remained pure about renouncing necromancy,” said Eando.
“Hey, cut him some slack,” I said. “That was the book. He was under a curse. And don’t forget he took on your curse, too.”
“I know, I know,” said Eando. “I’m not criticizing. It’s just that sometimes, in the face of ruthless opponents, you can’t be picky about your methods.”
I caught Janneke glancing at me when he said that.
“What?”
“I think you know what,” she said. “You said you were raised on the streets of Egorian, right? You talked to those Sczarni like you’d rubbed shoulders with their kind before. Tell me you haven’t done a few bloody deeds.”
“You mean like Kaid’s Band making raids on the Bottoms?”
Janneke’s back stiffened.
“They weren’t liberating those slaves, were they? That much I figured out on my own. And when I mentioned Kaid’s name back in Kaer Maga, I heard her band collected Shoanti scalps for Korvosans with a grudge.”
Kazyah’s head snapped around to face the bounty hunter.
Janneke looked away. “There were a lot of reasons I quit.”
“Before or after a few bloody deeds of your own?”
Janneke scowled at me, but she got the point. I wasn’t the only one with blood on my hands.
“Listen,” said Eando. “We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t done. We can’t change the past. What we can do is try to balance the scales. Stopping Ygresta from becoming a lich is a way to do that.”
“Even if it means calling the dead to rise from the earth?” Illyria hefted a little bag. Ghoul teeth rattled inside. She looked to Kazyah like she was asking permission.
“It is a foul thing,” said the shaman. “But if you summon these things to fight against another abomination…” She shrugged. “I guard my ancestors’ graves. I do not care if you despoil the crypt of an azghat.”
“Good,” said Eando, who turned and lay down on his bedroll. “Now everybody get some sleep. We’ve got a long day of stupidly dangerous deeds ahead of us tomorrow.”
* * *
By noon the next day we’d spotted two herds of aurochs.
The first was barely what you’d call a herd. A couple of bulls guarded five or six cows and three calves against something prowling the nearby grass. For a while we were too far away to see what it was, but we knew something was there by the way the aurochs moved all of a sudden. Then they’d stand still again while the bulls circled the others.
Just before we drove out of sight, I saw a giant wolf—a warg, easily twice as big as Arni—make a run for one of the calves. A bull charged it, and they fell together. The last thing I saw was the bull trotting back to his family and the wolf loping away with a big red wound in its flank.
Arni had his paws up on the open window. He whined, eager to chase down the warg.
“Settle down, pal,” I called down from the roof.
He whined and sat.
The second herd was big as a storm cloud and so far away that I couldn’t make out much detail. There had to be hundreds of the animals, maybe thousands. Lucky for us, they weren’t anywhere near our path.
A couple times Janneke pointed to vultures circling in the distance. The grass had grown tall enough that there was no telling what lay dead or dying beneath them. I kept my eyes peeled for anything that moved. The way the wind blew waves across the grass made that harder than it sounds. Every breeze caught my eye. I could never tell whether I’d seen something stalking the carriage or whether it was just a wind furrow.
We stopped just long enough to water and rest the horses. Everybody except me helped rub them down. While they did that, I stretched my legs. I called Arni over a couple of times. The first time he pretended not to hear me. The second time he came halfway before changing his mind.
That was something.
The afternoon sun got hot enough that Janneke started pulling off the heavier pieces of her armor. I could tell she hated doing that by the way she started unbuckling a strap, only to stop with a curse. Ten minutes later, she’d tear off a pauldron or vambrace and slam it down behind her with the baggage.
I saw something to the north, five or six big dark figures lumbering in our general direction. I pointed them out.
Janneke stood up on the driver’s perch. She kicked the carriage to get everybody else’s attention. Kazyah and Illyria leaned out of the windows. Eando climbed up on the other side.
“Are those what I think they are?” he said.
“Mammoths,” said Kazyah.
Squinting, I made out their shapes. They looked something like the elephants I’d seen in a nobleman’s menagerie back in Egorian. They were covered in shaggy hair, and their tusks looked too heavy even for them. There was something weird about their backs, too.
“Oh, hell,” I said. “Something’s riding them.”
“Orcs,” said Kazyah. “They raid the Realms of the Mammoth Lords for mounts such as these.”
“They’ve seen us,” said Janneke.
Once she said it, I could tell they were changing direction. A distant sound echoed across the plains.
“War drums,” said Eando. “If any other bands are in range, they’ll hear the call.”
“That’s just great,” I said.
Janneke cracked the reins over the team. The big horses were strong, but they weren’t built for speed. Besides, the carriage was full.
“We need to lighten the load. Can you make us some phony ponies?” I asked Illyria.
“No,” she said. “I prepared for battle, not riding.”
Kazyah opened the carriage door and reached up for a hand. I pulled her up beside me. She looked out at the mammoths, frowning in thought. As they got closer, I saw one of the big shaggy beasts had drums hanging from either side. A pair of orcs on its back pounded away at them. On others, orcs squatted in wicker baskets bristling with spears and bows.
“They will drive us south unless we can go faster,” said Kazyah.
“I’m driving as fast as I can!” said Janneke.
“Don’t any of you know a spell to make them run faster?” I said.
Nobody answered me.
“Well, dammit, gimme those.” I climbed up beside Janneke and took the reins. Surprised, she let me have them.
The moment I got close, the nearest horses began to whinny. One turned its head to see what it’d sensed creeping up behind him. When it saw me, its whinny became a scream. Its legs churned faster, kicking up clumps of grass and dirt.
“Sorry, boys.” I cracked the reins and stood tall so they could all get a look at me as the panic spread to the lead horses.
Calling back to the others, I yelled, “Hold on! It’s going to get bumpy.”
The carriage jumped. I almost flew off the perch.
Behind me, Kazyah sat low on the carriage roof and began chanting in a loud voice. Janneke released the scorpion. As it rose up and snapped into place, she fit one of the big steel bolts onto the mechanism. The wind blew back her red-gold braids. Her eyes shone as much with excitement as with fear. She’d been dying for a chance to shoot that bow again.
Over the screams of the horses sounded the rumble of charging mammoths. I looked back to see a masked orc shaking a staff at us. I braced for whatever bad whammy he was sending o
ur way.
Instead, the orc looked up to the sky. A gray blur flew down at him. Whatever it was, it scared the hell out of the orc. He howled so loud I heard him over the mammoth’s thunder and the screams of our horses. He dropped his staff, covered his head with his arms, and tumbled back off his mount to disappear under the feet of the mammoths behind him.
“Nice one, Illyria,” Eando shouted.
“That’s Lady Illyria to you!” she called back. Probably she was joking to keep her courage up, but I couldn’t tell. Holding onto the reins and not getting pulled down under the carriage were my main concern.
The roar of the charging mammoths got twice as loud all of a sudden. From out of nowhere, a herd of aurochs stampeded right into their path. I could have sworn they weren’t anywhere in sight a second earlier. Then I realized Kazyah had finished her first chant. She didn’t hesitate before taking up a different one.
The mammoths reared and trumpeted as the horned aurochs ran beneath them. Some of the orcs fell and disappeared under the stampede. Others held on for their lives, forgetting their bows and spears.
The stampede pulled down one mammoth and turned the rest away—all except for one. A gray-streaked bull plowed through the aurochs, his legs and belly bleeding from gores. Scars crisscrossed his trunk. He’d been in battle before, and he wasn’t ready to quit. Standing in a palanquin on his back, two of the biggest, meanest orcs I’d ever seen had steel bows drawn back. One was pointing at me. I dropped low onto the driver’s box. They released their arrows, and in the same instant I heard Janneke shoot the scorpion and shout a curse.
The orc’s arrow creased my shoulder like a sword slash.
The reins jerked in my hands. I almost lost them. After a second of fumbling, I wrapped them around my wrists and got back up to my knees.
On the carriage roof, Janneke cranked back the scorpion for another shot. A long black arrow stuck out of her side.
“Janneke’s hit!” I yelled.
“I’m all right,” she said. Her weak voice told a different story.
The lone mammoth kept barreling after us, but only one blood-splashed orc remained on its back. The stampede had kept them from cutting us off, but they were gaining on us.
“Shoot the mammoth!” yelled Eando. As he climbed up to join her and Kazyah on the roof, I felt the carriage balance shift. I hunkered low, like that would help. Eando braced a hand against her side and pulled out the arrow.
“Gorum’s guts and Cayden’s cups!” she cried out in pain and irritation. “I was aiming for the mammoth!” While Eando pressed a hand to her wound and sang a healing phrase, she finished cranking the bow and fit another heavy bolt in place. “Why don’t you shut up and help fight?”
“Dammit,” he said, pulling a scroll from its case. “It’s my last one. I was saving it for the Cenotaph.”
“You can use it here, or you can use it in Hell,” she said.
“Good point.”
Kazyah gave Janneke a light slap. The bounty hunter turned gray—skin, hair, armor, everything. The shaman did the same to Eando, then reached forward to slap me on the shoulder. I felt my skin tighten, and I knew she’d made me hard as stone. I relaxed a little about the arrows.
“It’s gaining on us!” cried Eando.
Sure enough, the mammoth closed in on our left flank. I pulled the reins hard to the right to get a little more space between us.
“Look out!” shouted Janneke. I ducked low again. When nothing came my way, I peeked back. The orc archer stood stock still, his bow half-drawn. A ghostly hand hovered a couple feet from his head, where it had left a hand-shaped mark on his cheek.
Janneke cranked the scorpion again.
“Finish him!” Illyria yelled from inside the carriage. “The paralysis won’t last forever.”
Grumbling, Eando unfurled his scroll and read the words. A fiery glow lit up the page, and a pea-sized flame shot toward the mammoth. A fireball exploded right between its tusks.
The big animal kept chasing us, its shaggy coat in flames. It left burning footprints and a greasy trail of smoke in its wake. Soon it was right behind us, its tusks bumping the back of the carriage.
“Now it’s on fire,” Eando said. “That’s so much worse.”
“Get down,” said Janneke. She turned the scorpion, aimed straight back at the mammoth, and shot. The bolt disappeared.
She couldn’t have missed, not at that range. Then I saw the dark wound where the bolt had sunk completely into the mammoth’s skull. With a mournful sound, the beast turned to the side and fell.
Janneke let loose a cheer so vulgar it startled even me.
“That was a close one,” said Eando. “But we did it.”
“Do not celebrate too soon,” said Kazyah. “Others heard the drums.”
She pointed to another band of orcs approaching from the south. Most of them ran through the grass on foot, but several rode giant wargs. To the rear, a big orc with his tribe’s banner behind his saddle rode on a giant black rhino. Beside him, a warg-rider blew a war horn.
Arni barked from inside the carriage.
“Drive on,” said Kazyah. “They will not be the last to join the chase.” She put her hands on my back and chanted a healing spell.
The horses were covered in lather, their eyes wide and frightened. I said, “I don’t know how long I can keep running them.”
“Until our skulls are gathered,” said Kazyah.
Eando sighed. “I knew I should have saved that scroll.”
19
The Cenotaph
Varian
Awaking with the dawn, I heard the steady drone of Svannostel snoring. Shattered weapons and crushed armor lay scattered along the bloody mountain path, but no bodies remained. Svannostel had devoured the orcs who tried preventing our approach to the Cenotaph. After glutting herself on their bodies, she declared it time for a nap, curled up, and dozed.
One of my Azlanti stones sustained me without food or drink, so I did not share her hunger. I could barely remember the voracity I had felt while in the throes of the gluttonous curse only days before. While free of Zutha’s Tome, I remained trapped by our shared bloodline and my familial duty to ensure the runelord’s tyrannical power did not return in the form of Benigno Ygresta.
After performing the calisthenics I had learned at Dragon Temple, I retrieved my grimoire and filled my mind with spells. On each night of our journey from the Sleeper, I inscribed more riffle scrolls from the spells I had not cast that day. Between those stored in my rings, stones, scrolls, and mind, an arcane arsenal lay at my command. I was prepared.
Squinting through my spyglass toward the sunrise, I could barely perceive the black line of the Shudderwood to the east. North of the forest, the Moutray River divided Ustalav from Sarkoris, where my journey from the crusade to Korvosa had begun. So far I had traveled, only to return near to my starting place.
Somewhere at the foot of the mountains lay the unmarked border dividing us from the counties of Ustalav. An old oath prevented me from setting foot in that misty principality, and I felt a small twinge of amusement at the idea that if only I had stipulated “until I die” or “as long as I live,” I might now have crossed the border without breaking my word. Fortunately for my honor’s sake, our destination lay within the Hold of Belkzen.
“Does something approach from the east?” While somewhat smaller than the other dragons I had encountered, Svannostel’s massive body still made me feel insignificant beside her.
“Only memories,” I said. Her gaze drifted south. I turned my spyglass but saw nothing. A dragon’s eyes are keen, so I asked, “Does something approach from the south?”
“I had hoped my brother would come from Vigil,” she said. “I told him of our task, but he has made oaths to those he protects. The young Watcher-Lord of Lastwall is bolder than his predecessors, but the Worldwound campaign diminished his forces.”
Many cavaliers and templars from Lastwall had fought at my side in Sarkoris, but thei
r first duty was to watch over Gallowspire, where the Whispering Tyrant remained imprisoned. Much as we might need their aid, I respected the Watcher-Lord’s devotion to duty. While his forces kept vigil over Tar-Baphon, we prepared to prevent the resurrection of the runelord from whom the Whispering Tyrant stole his power.
Svannostel and I turned to gaze westward upon the Cenotaph.
The colossal pillar of black stone rose from the base of the mountain to tower hundreds of feet above us. Ahead, across a precarious bridge, stood a pair of doors composed of a pale green crystal. Far above us, another bridge led to a second set of doors.
“Zutha’s crypt lies beneath the Cenotaph,” said Svannostel. “Yet I wonder what lies behind those high doors.”
They aroused my curiosity as well. I drew the Shadowless Sword and looked up at them. The sword’s grip trembled in my hand. I sensed a wordless warning not to approach the higher doors. Whatever lay behind them was anathema to the sword, to me, or to everything.
“Ygresta will have gone to the crypt,” I said. “Whatever he seeks must lay entombed with the runelord.”
We crossed the bridge. Before us, the doors stood closed. While I lacked the skill of a trained tracker, even I could not help noticing the enormous footprints leading to the doors.
“Ygresta’s golem?” said Svannostel.
“It seems likely.”
We found no handle, knocker, or other device upon the doors. The Shadowless Sword revealed no obscuring illusions. I waved a hand before them, hoping they might react to my crest of rings or crown of Azlanti stones. “Open.”
The doors did not react to my command, nor to my touch. I tried again in the tongues of ancient Thassilon and Azlant, then the guttural speech of orcs and several less likely languages.
“It was worth a try,” said Svannostel. She tried to grip the door with a claw, but the seam between the doors was too narrow for her talons.
“How did Ygresta enter?” I mused aloud.
“The Tome?”
I nodded to acknowledge that was probably the case. “Yet Tar-Baphon found a way in.”
