by AC Cobble
“You didn’t get all of that from Ambrose.”
Rew shrugged and did not respond.
“You didn’t, because he doesn’t know. Hmm. A ranger for the Eastern Territory, but you’re familiar enough with Iyre to know about the Sons of the Father? Why should I answer any of your questions if you won’t answer mine? How do you know Iyre and the Sons, Ranger?”
“Rangers like to walk. I did a lot of walking before I was assigned to the eastern wilderness.”
The woman snorted and stood, leaning heavily on her uninjured leg and waving his hand away as he moved to help her. “You’re a frustrating man, you know?”
“Tell it,” said Anne from a dozen paces away.
The woman granted the empath a shallow bow then stalked toward where Raif and Cinda were sparring. Borace gave her a big grin, but the woman’s attention was on the children.
Rew lay back and closed his eyes, letting the last of the afternoon sun warm him. He let his mind drift, extending his senses, listening to Ambrose instruct Cinda on marshaling her power for the death’s breath spell, and to Anne as she rustled about with the food, and then to Borace and the nameless woman as they instructed Raif and Zaine on the finer intricacies of combat footwork.
The camp was peaceful, everyone playing their role except for him. He lay there with his eyes closed, half-listening, half-thinking. A portal to Mordenhold. They could be in the capital in days. They could be anywhere in days, if he knuckled his forehead and behaved himself in front of Valchon. They were going to see the prince on behalf of Stanton, and Rew had his own business with the man, but what to make of the chance the portal stones provided?
Should he confront Valchon or go to Mordenhold? Or perhaps west, to one of the other capitals? Calb and Heindaw would never expect Rew to appear from one of the portal stones. Did it make sense to face one of them first, while Valchon dealt with the Dark Kind? Cinda was learning and growing, but could she learn enough to face the king?
Vaisius Morden thought it was her sister, Kallie, who held the power. If Rew told the king it was his own sons behind the plot to use the Fedgleys, then the king may take care of the princes for them, but he’d take care of Cinda and Rew as well. Besides, would it be any good to eliminate the princes if the king remained upon the throne? Rew figured he could convince the king to act against the princes, but was it possible to keep Cinda’s power and his own involvement from the king? What else would the king do in pursuit of his sons? Vaisius Morden was not known for his restraint, and it wouldn’t be out of character if he destroyed the princes’ cities just to get at the men inside. Rew hoped he could face the princes, but he wasn’t sure he’d prevail. The king… The king could handle all three of them.
With tortured thoughts, Rew succumbed to the exhaustion that had been chasing him for days, and two hours before dark, while Anne was still cooking his supper, he fell asleep.
16
The hike south was mercifully free of Dark Kind, which Rew suspected meant that the creatures were clustered close around Stanton, and they were likely going to attack soon. He felt it like an ominous cloud behind them, the danger to the city and his impotence to do anything about it except to hurry, to rush toward Carff, and to plead with Prince Valchon to save his own people.
But as much as they wanted to hurry, they made poor progress. Anne recovered in time from the energy she’d spent healing, and the others could easily handle her chores around the campsite, but Borace and the nameless woman were slow to regain their vigor, and Lord Fredrick spent as much time dragging his feet as he did lifting them. When he wasn’t speaking in hushed tones with Cinda, Ambrose drifted along like a wraith, just as quiet but only half as creepy. Getting them all going was like shepherding a pack of turtles.
Rew prodded and chided, but there was only so much he could do when the two warriors were simply incapable of more. He’d considered leaving them, but after a quick word with Anne, he dropped that idea.
“When an empath heals, a connection is forged,” she’d reminded him. “I feel them, and I feel for them. They’re exhausted, Rew. It’s not laziness. It is true, bone-deep exhaustion. Whether I want to or not, I care for their well-being. If we push them too hard, they’ll collapse. If we leave them, who knows what could happen to them. The roads are as empty as I’ve ever seen them, which means soon enough, they’ll be filled with bandits and worse.”
Rew grunted. “We didn’t ask them to accompany us.”
“Does it matter? They’re with us now.”
“It’s like the children,” said Rew, keeping his voice low. “You’re going to tell me they’re family next. We can’t afford it, Anne. They’ve their own motivations, their own reasons for being on this journey.”
Anne scowled.
“She’s a priest of the Cursed Father,” whispered Rew.
“No, she’s not,” retorted Anne.
Rew raised an eyebrow.
“Priests of the Cursed Father are always men,” said Anne, “and that woman is very clearly a woman. I thought you’d seen that when—“
“She was bleeding out! You know that’s not what happened. And you’re right about the priests, but she as much confirmed it to me.” Rew frowned and lowered his voice. “How do you know all of the Cursed Father’s priests are men? It’s only the Blessed Mother I’ve heard you offering prayers to, and you’ve never been to Iyre, have you?”
“No one prays to the Cursed Father,” replied Anne. “Not even the Sons of the Father.”
Rew’s eyes lit up. “The herbalist in Spinesend. I knew it.”
“She was a woman, if you recall. As I said, there are no female priests of the Cursed Father.”
“But she’s affiliated with the cult, is she not? I saw the totems she was selling, the artifacts and the bones. She’s a purveyor for those who seek the favor of the cult. Did… Were you…”
“That’s not why I knew her,” muttered Anne. “She’s involved in other, ah, other matters. She helps people, women, who need a place to go. You recall the beds in her loft? Some women are in terrible situations, and need help slipping the chains that their men or others have put upon them. She helps them. I once did as well.”
“The girls in your inn.”
Anne smiled bitterly. “Aye, them, and many more like them before we came to Eastwatch. Those girls were sent to me, and I made them a safe place to regain their footing and their pride.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have tried to solve the problem, Rew, and some problems like that cannot be solved. Not by one man with a sword.”
He grunted, then asked, “But what was all of that in the woman’s shop, then? The bones and artifacts?”
“She sells herbs, too, or did you miss those? She… She had to have a cover, and what better cover than an affiliate of those who worship the Cursed Father? Believe me, nothing sends a man running like a description of what some of those powders in her shop can do to…”
She winked at him, and Rew let it drop. Anne, once she took someone under her wing, wasn’t going to leave them behind. It didn’t matter how often Rew made comments about how many people had been in Stanton and the risk to them if the party didn’t move faster. Anne cared for those she could see and that she could touch. It was who she was, and he’d learned he wasn’t going to change that. He didn’t want to change that.
And like it or not, she’d taken in the nameless woman. He could argue with her about it, but he knew he’d be wasting his time.
So because the others couldn’t push too hard, they paused early each evening. They couldn’t hike, but Rew took advantage of the adventurers’ knowledge and their presence. He had Borace and the nameless woman instructing Raif and Zaine, and Ambrose was sitting with Cinda each evening. Lord Fredrick, Rew left alone. Allegedly, he was a talented low magician, but Rew and Anne had no interest in trying to convince the man to share what he knew. It seemed the only talent the nobleman wanted to display was bemoaning his pl
ace in life. As the days passed, Rew found a new sympathy for Fredrick’s father, Baron Worgon. Rew didn’t quite forgive Worgon for his actions, but he thought he understood the baron’s put-upon outlook every time his son’s name had come up.
The exposure to other tutors was good for the children. Raif seemed to listen to Borace more closely than he ever did Rew, and Zaine had become enamored with the nameless woman. Borace was the type of fighter Raif aspired to be—a bull of a man who relied on his strength and ferocious attacks but certainly not his brains. Raif was like his calf, following him with his eyes when they were not in close discussion and emulating the giant berserker in all aspects. More than once, Rew had to still Raif’s sharpening tongue with a pointed stare. He thought it ridiculous that the young noble was looking up to the larger fighter, but no one had ever argued about the wisdom of youth. As far as Rew was concerned, the one-time they’d seen Borace in real combat, the berserker nearly died. It wasn’t about the size of one’s axe, Rew had declared to Raif, but how one used it.
At least, he’d tried to say that until he’d been interrupted by Zaine’s cackling. He’d attempted to rephrase, but the moment was lost. The thief’s admiration of the nameless woman, at least, Rew could better understand.
The nameless woman strutted as if she was a fierce warrior princess, and when the light hit the woman’s armor in the evenings, she looked the part. The gleaming bronze plates and tightly woven chain shone like she spent an hour a day polishing it, because she did. After every sparring session, regardless of whether she’d been touched or even dirtied, she would clean her armor and her blade. Caring for your equipment was important, but the woman’s kit was enchanted. It would hold up without constant attention. Over the days they traveled together, Rew decided it was more the need to complete a ritual than it was a need to clean her gear. There was something about the movements which the woman wanted to hold onto, something or someone she honored with that ritual. When he asked her about it, she merely stared at him. While she was unabashedly strange, Rew had to give her credit. The nameless woman knew what she was doing with her blade. She moved like the wind and struck like lightning. The tips she gave Zaine, and her ability to translate those words into demonstrations, were valuable for the thief. In a few short days, Zaine’s confidence with her daggers began to grow.
Ambrose, on the other hand, had earned no one’s admiration. It turned out he was exactly as they’d expected—a necromancer of marginal talent who’d only survived as long as he had by scurrying away beneath a rock every time someone looked at him sideways. He was a helpless coward, but he did know more of necromancy than Rew or Anne, so that was something. Rew could only hope the hours Cinda spent in his company were worth it for the girl, and that through Ambrose’s cycle of preening and sniveling, she found some knowledge she could use.
There were times Rew worried the necromancer was just teaching her parlor tricks with half a mind to annoy Rew. Most of the hushed discussions between the two happened dozens of paces away from the others and lasted well into the night as the two necromancers slept fewer hours than the rest of them.
One night, while Rew took a shift at watch, he was startled by a terrified shriek of surprise from Cinda. He dashed toward where she and Ambrose knelt together away from the others. He skidded to a stop. In front of the two of them, a foul-smelling opossum teetered uncertainly on its four legs. Half the fur on its face had sloughed away, and Rew saw bugs clinging there where they’d feasted upon the opossum’s corpse. It’d been… dead.
“Yes,” hissed Ambrose, “yes, you’ve got it. Now, push your thoughts through the link, and move the right—pfah! You lost it.”
The dead opossum flopped onto the dirt, motionless.
Rew, looking over the shoulders of the two necromancers, thought he was going to be sick.
“I felt… It was like a part of me, a part of me that was confused. I—It wanted to run.”
Stroking his smooth chin and nodding, Ambrose replied, “Naturally.”
Cinda reached up and clasped her head. “I still feel its terror.”
“Animal instincts are powerful,” responded Ambrose sagely. “They’re more powerful than human emotions. Their thoughts are simpler, though, and the passage of their souls more fleeting. It is easier to bind an animal than a person, but more difficult to command them. Getting an animal such as this to retain instructions without constant maintenance through the link is virtually impossible. Because people have better developed capabilities for memory and because you share a common understanding of how to communicate, people are more useful vessels. When binding large groups of souls, always use human corpses, as you’ll find you cannot continue instructing more than two or three base animals.”
“I see.”
“Animals are good for practice as dead ones are easier to come by,” murmured the necromancer. He glanced back over his shoulder at Rew. “They garner less scrutiny from those who do not appreciate our art.”
Rew grunted.
“When Worgon’s camp was attacked,” murmured Cinda, “I cast death’s flame, and one of, ah, one of the men… I held him, for a time.”
“How long?” queried Ambrose.
“Seconds.”
“That’s good,” said Ambrose after a sharp intake of breath. “People make better vessels, but they require more power to bind. They can fight it, you understand? If your hold on their soul is not secure, they’ll slip away. But once you’ve got them, it’s easier to keep them in thrall. I… I should tell you, I have never bound a person. I do not have the strength.”
“Well, I did not do it for long.”
Ambrose looked back at Rew and said, “Binding a person with no training is… unheard of.” He shuddered and then pointed at the dead opossum. “Let’s try again, Cinda. Raising the dead, like all things in life, improves with practice.”
Without speaking, Rew left them. He sat on the other side of the camp where he could not hear their discussion, and even after Ambrose and Cinda turned in for the little bit of rest they required, Rew kept watch until dawn. He was deeply discomfited by what he’d seen, and he would not be able to sleep.
17
As the days progressed, they traveled farther and farther before having to stop each evening. The warriors had regained much of their strength, and it was only Lord Fredrick’s constant stream of complaints and woes which ground them down to the point none were willing to push harder. No amount of chiding the man about the risk to Stanton would get him to move any quicker, and Rew couldn’t leave the purported leader of their group without Borace learning of their secrets. And if there was one thing that could be said of the berserker, it was that once he knew a secret, he did not keep it for long.
What made it worse, was now that Borace was no longer on the verge of collapse, he put his remaining energy each evening into pursuit of the nameless woman. She rebuffed his attentions, which only seemed to inspire him to louder and more ludicrous attempts. The nameless woman weathered the commentary with aplomb, but Anne was seething. More than once, she snapped at the giant berserker, who seemed to find her anger amusing. Rew moved to intercede and perhaps teach the giant man a severe lesson, but Anne stopped him.
“That woman is quite capable of defending herself,” she hissed, “and it’s only her taunts that fuel his ardor. I suspect that with a man like Borace, if she left him alone, he’d leave her alone as well. I can’t claim to understand it, but she’s enjoying it as much as he is. It disgusts me, and I’d like to see you put your first into his face or, even better, see her gut that vile man like a fish, but it’s not our fight. She can handle him, if she wants to, and we should leave it at that.”
Rew grunted and left it alone as Anne requested, but periodically, the empath could not follow her own advice. Borace laughed uproariously, thinking to goad Anne as he did the nameless woman, until Anne promised him that next time he required her healing, she would not grant it. That shut the berserker’s mouth, at least when it c
ame to Anne and the rest of the party. The nameless woman, a cat-like grin curling her lips, took the opportunity to speculate on how soon it would be before Borace would need some of that healing.
The bickering kept on, grating on Rew’s nerves, until they were a day outside of Carff. The landscape had changed, and they entered a forest of tall, slender pines. The soil had dried over the days and become sandy. Traffic on the road had picked up, and it was rare they would go longer than a quarter hour without seeing fellow travelers, but the party remained quiet and did not speak to the others sharing the road. It’d been some time since they’d heard rumor of Dark Kind, and so close to the capital, bandits and other worries were nonexistent.
Near Carff, Rew wanted to avoid conversations where someone might guess the identity of the party. The mercenaries and Ambrose were content to comply with his desire for secrecy, Ambrose because he’d bow to anything Rew demanded, and the mercenaries because they did not want to spread rumors and spoil their chance of collecting payment for bringing tidings to Prince Valchon. Lord Fredrick eyed everyone they passed, as if seeking those of his status to share laments, but he saw no one, and he would not deign to consort with even more people below his station after weeks in the company of their party.
Rew felt little sympathy for the man. The nobles who buzzed around Prince Valchon’s court like flies around offal would not be leaving for a trip along the highway now, not during the Investiture. They’d be busy burying their heads in the prince’s backside, just as Fredrick hoped to do. Even in peaceful times, the nobles of the court would rarely venture out into the province. They considered the lords of the Eastern Territory and the other remote regions as near-savages. Rew grinned, wondering if Fredrick was aware of that.
For the most part during the journey, Rew had attempted to ignore the nobleman. Lord Fredrick was traveling hundreds of leagues from his home so that in the midst of war, threats from the Dark Kind, and the deaths of every leader of every city in the territory, he could be formally named a baron. It was the sort of self-interested calamitous disregard for anything other than their own gain that defined the nobility, and Rew wanted nothing to do with it.
