The horses stayed surprisingly calm and Nolan thought that a good sign. Not that he could be certain. He’d seen horses many times, and he’d been trained to ride one without falling off, but they were still a fairly new experience to him. His thighs and hips and backside were likely never to forgive him the sin of taking up riding.
When they’d been summoned to the palace in Tyrne, he’d thought they were going to be questioned about the beasts that they’d hauled with them from the battle. Nolan could not have been more mistaken. He’d expected to see Merros Dulver, and on that front too, he was disappointed.
Instead of meeting with a general he met with the Empress and her advisor, a sorcerous thing called Desh Krohan. He’d heard of the wizard, of course. Nearly everyone had heard stories, but the truth was so much worse. The wizard towered above them in a great cloak that seemed alive, and no matter how hard Nolan had stared he’d never been able to see a face within the cowl of that hood.
He’d almost ignored the wizard, he’d been so busy looking at the Empress. That she was a beauty was a given. She had reddish hair and a lean body, and she’d been wearing a crown on her head, but she didn’t seem like she was capable of ruling the whole of the known world.
Tolpen was the one who figured out how to bow properly and the others followed suit very quickly. There were two guards at the doors of the immense room where they met the Empress and the sorcerer. The throne she sat on was surely elaborate enough, and he supposed that the fact that she sat there should have been his warning, but the notion of bowing to a girl barely any older than him had not sat at all well until Tolpen did it and made him realize what was supposed to be done.
Empress Nachia did not show the least bit of concern over whether or not bowing got done. The wizard seemed less interested in that notion and more concerned with talking to the four of them.
After that it all sort of blurred. One moment he was focused on the Empress and the next he was trying to figure out what sort of nightmare was hiding under that sorcerer’s cloak and then Tolpen was nodding and promising that they would not disappoint the Empress or the wizard.
It was only when they were choosing horses from the royal stables that Nolan realized they were going somewhere.
Turned out they were going to the Blasted Lands. Something about being heroes of the Crown and needing to go to protect a young girl who was on a mission to find out more about the enemies of the Empire.
Nolan cursed himself for not paying better attention.
Vonders had opened his bedroll and was sorting himself. His ring kept catching the light from the lantern. They didn’t quite dare a full fire, but two lanterns burned in the tent with them and kept the entire assortment of soldiers and animals in semidarkness.
“How much did you say a ring like that costs?” Darus kept eying that ring like it was the crown on the Empress’s brow.
Vonders shook his head. “Didn’t cost me a thing. Found it out here in the Blasted Lands. Keep your eyes aware and maybe we’ll find you a treasure of your own.”
“You think so?” Darus managed to sound both hopeful and dubious at the same time. Like he couldn’t quite believe the pretty girl he’d been looking at might like him in return, only more so.
Vonders yawned and curled his furs around his shoulders to keep the cold at bay. “Trust me. It ain’t so hard to find stuff. You just have to know how to look.”
That was the last word spoken during the night. The winds were shrieking and being heard was impossible.
The next morning was more of the same and the men sat in their shelter and ate dry rations and drank water and then tended to their horses. Fresh water and oats, and the animals seemed perfectly content to stay put. Vonders said that was a sign it was time to stay where they were, and not a man among them much argued with his logic. The winds and the screaming hail were enough to stop anyone from being foolish.
The tent was holding well enough, but Vonders instructed them on several occasions to beat at the sides when the storm seemed to grow quieter. His reasoning was sound. The silence was brought on by a thick sheet of ice building on the outside of the structure. Had it been left there was no doubt the entire thing would have collapsed under the weight. By the time the worst of the storm finally abated there were splits along a couple of seams and the taste of ash and dirt coated the inside of every mouth.
So far, the beauty of the Blasted Lands did not impress Nolan.
Darus spoke up as he carefully rolled his gear back into a bundle that could be carried on his shoulders. “So, where are we going again?”
Vonders pointed in a direction that meant nothing at all to Nolan. “That way. The Mounds.”
“What are the Mounds, exactly?” Darus did like his questions. No two ways.
“No notion as to what they might be, except they’re big and the Sa’ba Taylers ain’t much for ’em.”
“Sa’ba Taalor,” Nolan corrected.
Vonders nodded, taking the correction in stride. “The bastards that killed the Emperor don’t like ’em and that wizard sent his sister to go look ’em over. We’re supposed to make sure she gets back in one piece.”
“What? He sent his sister into this?” Darus’s voice squeaked at the very notion.
“Maybe they aren’t close.”
Nolan shook his head. “Long as we get there soon and get back. I don’t care much beyond that.”
Vonders shrugged and then secured the supplies in his wagon. The tent itself went over the top of the supplies and Nolan helped him tie the furs and canvas in place. Whatever else he might think, he’d never doubt the man from the steppes when it came to the weather again.
They were on their way within another fifteen minutes. An hour after that the horse that Tolpen rode slipped the wrong way on the ice and broke its hind leg. Tolpen managed to roll free before the animal could crush him.
If Nolan needed proof that the man was a hunter he got it right then. Tolpen put an arrow through the screaming animal’s head, killing it instantly. Within ten minutes after that, he was hiding the carcass and cutting thick slabs of meat from the animal’s body. Much as the notion horrified him, Nolan’s stomach rumbled at the thought of fresh meat. Their dried rations kept them alive but tasted like the air in the Blasted Lands.
They packed away as much flesh as they could on the supplies and Tolpen took turns riding behind the others to avoid exhausting the other horses. That night they ate fresh meat.
Not much more than a day later they met the woman, Tega, and the two guards who’d been watching over her.
When she was a young girl, Tega’s parents had worried about her. They felt that she was too serious to be a child. Really, that was something that never changed. Even when she was lying to them and telling them that she was going to Trecharch and planned to visit with the amazing flora of that area, her parents felt she was too serious.
They’d have been far more worried along those lines if they’d known she was heading for the Blasted Lands.
There were six men traveling with her. All of them had eyed her with appreciative looks. They did so when they thought she wasn't looking, just as they saved their uncivilized comments regarding how well they could warm her nights for when she was in her private wagon and they thought she could not hear them.
She did not let the way they looked at her or spoke of her affect her ego. As Desh had said more than once, the least attractive can be a beauty when compared to solitude.
In the public times, they were very proper, but ultimately they were men and they were soldiers. In other circumstances, the two often led to a problem with crude humor and occasionally with inappropriate behavior. The latter was not a worry. Fear of Desh Krohan and of sorcery in general was enough to make sure they behaved, even if they hadn’t each been watching the others for foolish behavior.
They were soldiers, true enough, but they were also men who were promised extra monies if they returned their charge undamaged to her mentor.
Their expedition was much smaller than most that attempted to enter the Blasted Lands. Not small enough to be foolish, but very close to that in most eyes. The Pra-Moresh were a danger and a very real one. Several people had allegedly seen the great beasts in the northern areas of late, and Pella had heard them up in the Wellish Steppes. While it was not unheard of for the nightmares to wander those areas, it was a rarity.
The guards did not complain about their small numbers, not even when they thought Tega was too far away to hear them. They were grateful for the money and the opportunity to prove themselves to Merros Dulver. The new head of the Imperial Army was a harsh man to please, but gaining his favor and his trust could surely not hurt a soldier’s career chances.
The men with her were all chosen by Desh himself as examples of brave soldiers with a powerful sense of duty and a proven talent for defending their charges.
They had fought some sort of abominations on the road to Tyrne. They had done so well, in fact, that Desh had sent them to meet up with her by way of the Temmis Pass. She had ridden down the narrow cut away in the vast pit that held the Blasted Lands, and sweated the entire time. Twice she’d traveled that stretch now and both times she’d wondered if the wagon she was in would survive the trek. So far, her luck was holding.
The group had stopped for the night, such as it was. The wind and ash blew just as hard and the cold tried to sink through the wood of her wagon even more vigorously at night than in the daytime, the only other difference was that the darkness was more solid than before. The faint light of the sun was gone; the great orb set for the evening and the light of the Great Star that often shone down at night was lost behind clouds and grit.
Outside her shelter, the tents had been set up and the animals had been protected as best possible against the howling storms.
The storms did not seem to care. The winds were harsh enough to batter and shake her wagon.
A hard knock at the door of her wagon had Tega nearly ready to let out a yelp before she caught herself. The sound was simply so unexpected that she had no idea how to respond to it.
When she could breathe again she answered the door, one hand held behind the wooden barrier and holding a dagger. Just because the men had behaved themselves so far did not mean they would continue to follow that trend. In any event she did not want to take any foolish chances.
The winds tried to rip the door from her grip and the dust from outside entered the cabin in a rush. Tega squinted her eyes against the worst of it and looked at her unexpected guest.
The man on the other side of the threshold nodded his greeting. “According to the best guesses we can make in this weather, we should be at the Mounds tomorrow, if this storm lets up.” That was very likely the most words Maun had spoken to her since Desh had introduced them. He was a lean man, and hard, with several scars on his arms and his neck alike. He was unsettlingly quiet at the best of times. When they’d left Tyrne he’d said nothing, leaving most of the comments to the other man guarding her, a burly fellow named Stradly Limms. Stradly liked to talk and had filled her with a dozen stories about the City of Wonders. She enjoyed each of the tales, having never once been to the area often called the Old Capitol these days. The actual palace remained there and the majority of the Krous family lived there, but she’d never been herself. The stories Limms told honed her curiosity.
“Do you think the storm will abate?”
Maun stared at her for a moment without responding and finally gave a very small nod of his head. “Likely. At least according to Vonders.” Vonders was as close as they came to an expert in the area. He was, aside from her, the only person who’d ever entered the Blasted Lands before.
Tega thanked the man, but he did not leave. Eventually she decided to ask him why.
“We can’t tell for certain, the storm is too bad, but it’s possible there are others out here. Might even be some of the enemies are following us at a distance.”
Tega nodded her head. “Thank you for the warning. We’ll talk again after the storm lets up.”
Maun nodded and slid backward and into the winds, his hair flipping madly around his face. A moment later he was gone.
She did not like the man. There was something about him that was unpleasant, though she could not quite decide what it was. She would trust him only because Desh said she could, but she could not bring herself to be comfortable around him.
The winds continued their screaming fit and the wagon shuddered and groaned along with it, a victim of the raging abuse the wind delivered.
Outside the winds calmed for a moment and then a low noise thrummed through the air, through the ground itself, and set her entire body to vibrating along with everything in her shelter. Tega closed her eyes and felt her lips drawn down in a scowl of discomfort. The sensation was unpleasant at best and bordered on painful.
She knew what it was, of course. The sound – low vibration that rattled her bones in her flesh – was nothing other than the target of her investigation. The Mounds.
There were stories about what had happened in the Blasted Lands. Those different tales were one of the reasons she’d chosen to apprentice with Desh Krohan in the first place. He was supposed to be wise and ancient and if anyone would know the mysteries behind the ruined area it would surely be the man nearly old enough to have been there.
His tales were as broken and sporadic as the rest. There had been a great war, that much was a given. There had been sorceries on a scale not seen since and those powerful spells had caused the devastation. But what, exactly had happened? No one knew for sure.
According to Desh there was a very real possibility that the Mounds rested over the remains of Korwa, the greatest city that had ever existed. Korwa, where magic was first studied and taught, where the seat of the known world had been before the Cataclysm. Vonders and his family scavenged the Blasted Lands for the tiniest relics, but what might still be waiting if there was anything left of Korwa? Certain sorcerers, like Desh, had long since prepared their most important items to withstand amazing damage. It took time and power, of course, but according to Desh there were a few items of his that could not be destroyed by lightning, by fire, or sword. They could be hurt, yes, but it would require an army’s worth of effort.
What might still wait where sorcery got its start?
Despite herself, Tega felt her heartbeat faster at the thought of the Mounds. Not with apprehension, though surely there were plenty of reasons to be worried. Not with dread of what might be waiting in the place that could make noises low and strong enough to rattle her teeth in their sockets.
No. Her pulse quickened at the thought of what she might find if she could, indeed, discover a way to enter the area that the Sa’ba Taalor were forbidden to seek by their gods.
Ultimately, she knew that Desh had sent her for his own reasons, but in this case, she had decidedly a secondary purpose of her own.
She had questions, and now, by the gods, she just might have a way to get answers.
Eight
Four days passed before Desh Krohan came out of his chambers. No one, not even the new Empress, was quite foolish enough to knock on the doors to find him. Nachia Krous did indeed visit his chambers – twice, actually – but she did not find him. Instead she saw only the sealed door to a room within his personal area, and left without a sound. She knew that the door there lead to an area where he locked himself away to do whatever it was that sorcerers did when they dared not be disturbed.
There were stories aplenty of what sorcerers did, of course, but Nachia had never much cared about that. She was a very bright student when she was growing up, and she had always been inquisitive enough, but when it came to magic and the casting of spells, she had no interest.
It was not a lack of imagination so much as a simple understanding. She would never be allowed to practice any sort of sorcery, and so she did not waste her time with it. In this she was completely different from Pathra Krous. He had always desperately wanted to kn
ow more of everything that was forbidden him. She had never decided if that was a strength or a weakness in her cousin. Either way she missed him.
When Desh came out of his locked room he staggered to his personal chambers and immediately poured cold water from a pitcher into a goblet and a ceramic bowl. He drained the goblet, filled it two more times and finished it thrice. Then he washed his entire body, carefully splashing away the worst of the blood. There was a great deal of blood, more than he had expected.
When he was mostly presentable he draped his great robe over his body and moved into the main work area, lamenting, again, the lack of the Sisters to aid him.
Nachia was not in the room when he got there, but in less than twenty minutes she made her presence known. By then he had called for a servant to fill his bath properly and was busily eating pabba fruit, cheese and bread with desperate appetite. Four days without food or water had left him feeling wasted away, though he looked much as he always did.
“Where have you been?” Nachia’s voice was just a little demanding.
Desh didn’t even bother looking up from his food. He chewed, swallowed and washed the latest bite down with a splash of wine and answered, “Dealing with the Sooth. I’m glad you’re here. You’ve saved me the trouble of coming to you.”
Nachia was surprised not to hear his usual admonitions about privacy and the possibility of rumors but brushed that aside. “What’s wrong?”
Desh finally looked up and took another sip of his wine. “A great deal, actually. But the thing we should focus on for now is the need to move everyone out of this city immediately.”
“What?” Her voice cracked like a whip, and Desh imagined he could hear the echo from the other side of the palace’s courtyard walls.
“A little quieter, Majesty. We would rather not share state secrets with the enemies of the Empire.”
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