Damanja stretched out the black, slippery thing that her sword had become. Tendrils of shadow snaked from the tip. When the shadow reached the small knot of spearmen and riders on the hillside, soldier and horse alike collapsed at the first touch. Other snaking tendrils raced across the battlefield. They flowed over, around, and through the invading troops, who dropped without so much as a flinch, as if knocked low by blows to the head.
Her troops shouted in triumph at this unexpected turn, and fell upon Balint’s inert men to slaughter them en masse. Damanja couldn’t have that; these attackers were no longer enemies, but her troops by right of conquest.
She gave another turn of the shadow sword, and fresh tendrils raced out. This time they spread among her own army. Men and women collapsed and a great hush fell over the battlefield. Nobody was standing, nobody awake but her.
Gradually, her ears picked out other sounds. Crickets, in the distance. A low, moaning breeze. And of course the sound of beating wings from the crows that continued to circle the battlefield. Large and small, glossy or with gray-tipped feathers, the crows were all hers now. As were three fiefdoms, their armies, and all the peasants she could gather and whip into service.
Damanja lifted her shadowy sword overhead and bellowed her triumph to the sky. The crows answered with a great, cacophonous cry of their own.
Chapter Nine
Katalinka woke in a fever, with the sound of screaming in her ears. She’d been tossing all night, delirious, sweating and shivering in turn, and knew the screaming must be her own. She’d seen things in the night, and thought this was yet another hallucination.
First, her sister had appeared above her bed. Narina’s eyes had turned to hot coals, and when she opened her mouth, she had a demon’s fiery, forked tongue. Then Katalinka’s father had approached, his eyeballs squirming with maggots.
Finally, Abelard appeared, a bony, rotting corpse still armed with his blades, one black and one white. His lips were gone, his teeth bared in a permanent grin. Terrified, she tried to flee, to kick out at him, to do something, but her limbs were frozen in place.
“You’re dead,” she whispered as Abelard approached her bed. “I saw the firewalkers cut you down. And then you burned.”
He leaned over her. “You let them kill me.” His breath smelled of rotting meat.
“I didn’t.”
“You could have defended me, but you didn’t. You left me to rot.”
“But the lava. It swallowed you. I saw it take you. How could you be rotting?”
“You saw what you wanted to see.”
She tried to cry for help, but the words died in her throat. Now, someone else was over her, pressing her down. She struggled and fought and screamed.
“Stop!” a familiar voice said. “Do not fight.” An old man. Who was it?”
Her eyes opened. It was dawn, and her screaming continued high and panicked. There were friends here, not enemies. Katalinka closed her mouth and forced herself to remain quiet, but the screaming continued. Gradually, she realized it wasn’t her at all, but someone else.
The grip loosened on her arms, shoulders, and legs. She threw off her sweat-drenched blanket and tried to rise from bed.
“No,” the old man said. That was Kozmer. He withdrew to one side and leaned against his staff as she calmed.
There were others in her cottage. Miklos, the tall warbrand, leaned against the wall near the window, where the rafters were lowest, his head nearly scraping them. He looked thoughtful.
Sarika, the remaining firewalker sohn, stood to Miklos’s right, near the cottage’s heavy oak door. She stared at Katalinka with dark, glittering eyes that seemed to radiate suspicion. Of course she would be, should be suspicious, given what had happened to her companions: Lojda, Tankred, and Volfram. To her side was Drazul, another firewalker, this one an elder sohn like Kozmer.
A small fire cheerfully crackled in the hearth, and they’d lit an oil lamp and hung it from a hook by the door, providing additional light. There was something strange about the shadows coming off it, but maybe her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted. She was more curious about the closed windows. This time of year, the shutters were usually thrown open to let in the fresh, cool air, but it wasn’t hot in the room, in spite of her sweaty fever.
“A dragon flew over during the night,” Kozmer said, as if sensing her question.
“More snow?”
“Worse, a killing frost. The tomatoes were just starting to ripen, too. Potato plants died, as well. We have food stores enough, and the animals survived, so we’ll have meat. I don’t know about the farms in the canyon, though,” Kozmer added. “Seems like it’s going to be a long, hungry winter.”
“Might be a winter without end,” Katalinka said, “if the dragons don’t leave us be. Which one was it?”
“It was the white drake this time,” Miklos said. “But we should assume that all three are awake.”
“Did I hear screaming?” she asked.
Kozmer’s face darkened, and he sighed and twisted his staff in his hands. “That was Gyorgy. We were bringing him back from the baths.”
“I’m glad to hear he’s not dead. I wasn’t sure about that.”
“He’s not dead, but he’s not well, either.”
“No surprise. That bastard Volfram left him in bad shape.”
Katalinka couldn’t help but cast a look at Sarika and Drazul as she said this. The pair looked troubled, as well they should be. Katalinka and Miklos had killed the rogue firewalker when he’d set upon them in the high pastures. Mostly Katalinka, though Miklos had pinned him down with his falchion.
Maybe the firewalkers wanted to kill her in revenge. She hoped they would try. That would give her justification to draw her blades and shove them right through their. . .no. Katalinka gave a violent shake of the head. What was wrong with her?
You know the answer to that, a voice whispered in her head. It’s taken you, too.
“By all the fiery demons,” she whispered.
Kozmer reached toward her with his sowen. It was a comforting thing, like a blanket to wrap around her feverish, agitated sowen, but she shoved it off, angry.
“Don’t touch me. Where are my swords?”
“We put them away. Don’t worry, they’re safe.”
Her face flushed. “Stupid old man. Bring them to me at once. I swear to all of you—”
The firewalkers slammed into her with their sowen, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. This was it, their revenge. Drazul and Sarika would suffocate her, drag her very soul from her body, then cut off her head and feed her corpse to the crows.
“We’ll hold her still,” Drazul said, his voice grim. “Miklos, you carry her out. We’ll take her up and bathe her in the style of the bladedancer temple.”
Katalinka let out a hiss. “Don’t you do it.”
“What makes you think the baths will work?” Miklos asked. “Doesn’t seem to be helping the boy much, and this one is a lot stronger than he was.”
“Never mind Gyorgy,” Kozmer said. “Just get her up there and we’ll figure out what to do.”
“The elder is right,” Sarika said. “Leave this to the firewalkers. We know what to do.”
Miklos grunted. “I suppose it won’t hurt to try.”
Katalinka continued resisting through this, fighting back against the two firewalkers. They were both strong in their way. Drazul’s sowen was thick and suffocating, but slow to react, while Sarika’s was quicker, and jumped on every attempt to escape and regain control. Together, they kept her pinned.
Even so, Katalinka’s own sowen was stronger than it had been. She’d killed Volfram, and though he’d wounded her in turn, she must have drawn strength from his death. Yes, of course. She was on her rise to sword saint, and her growing power had already outstripped these fools. Once she killed them, she’d take more, still. Soon, nobody would be able to stop her, not even her sister.
She pushed back, and noted weaknesses in the others, fragile points in th
eir control. A vein throbbed in Drazul’s temple, and he kept his lips pressed tightly together when he wasn’t speaking. Sarika’s face was flushed, and beads of sweat stood out on her brow. They were only containing her with great effort.
The strange shadow bleeding off the lamp caught Katalinka’s attention. It was part of the aura of the object, she knew, yet she was equally sure that she’d never seen such a thing before. She reached out for it, took hold of a tendril of shadow, and drew it to her. And then she pushed it into her chest and wrapped it around her heart.
“Where is she?” Sarika demanded. “Where did she go?”
“Stay where you are,” Kozmer said. “It’s only a trick.” He prodded Katalinka with his own sowen, which was no longer trying to offer comfort. Instead, he’d treacherously thrown in his lot with the firewalkers. “There, now do you see?”
“Yes,” Sarika said, panting. “I see her. This is harder than I thought. What should I do?”
“Keep your sowen tight,” Kozmer said. “Don’t relax, even for a moment. She’ll maul you if you do.”
Katalinka wanted to snarl that she’d maul them all, that she’d have her revenge, but she was too busy gathering shadows, not only those cast by the lamp, but those dancing on the wall above the hearth. They felt oily somehow, and her sowen darkened as she wrapped it around herself.
“Dammit, she’s strong,” Sarika said. Sweat poured down her face, and there was strain in her voice. “How much longer can she hold out?”
Katalinka let out a hiss. “Long enough to kill you all.”
She thought she found a chink in the armor, this time on the firewalker elder, but Drazul plugged the gap and pushed back relentlessly. Katalinka continued to gather shadow, even as her sowen bent inward under the strain.
“Hold her,” Kozmer said. “She’s giving out.”
Katalinka lashed out with the shadows. They cut through the others’ sohn and broke them apart with a psychic shock. The shutters rattled, and crockery tumbled from the shelves next to the hearth.
Sarika fell back with an exclamation of surprise, momentarily stunned. Drazul dropped to one knee, his sowen in tatters. Kozmer had weathered the attack, but now that he was alone, she directed her fury in his direction. Katalinka gave him a hard slap, and he staggered backward and would have fallen if not for his staff. His mouth hung open, his eyes widened in shock, and blood trickled from both nostrils.
She gained her feet. Where were her swords? Where had these devils put them? Not here, no. They must be down at the armory, or perhaps hidden in one of the temple barns, wrapped in kid leather and stuffed beneath a haystack. No matter. Once she got free of the cottage, she’d reach out her sowen and find them.
Katalinka had almost reached the door, where Drazul remained on his knees, old and feeble looking, and Sarika leaned against the wall, looking like she’d be sick. Neither had enough sowen to hold her for a moment, and physically she could toss them clear. Get past them, get into the open air, get her swords, and—
A strong hand clamped on her shoulder.
It was Miklos, and his grip was like a pair of crushing tongs from the forge. She shoved him away with a snarl and lashed at him with her sowen. Forget this little push; she’d rip him apart and leave him drooling blood on the ground.
He caught her sowen and held it with his own. He’d gathered his own shadows, and she couldn’t get past them to strike directly. Kozmer’s sowen came in from behind, and then the other two were back in the fight. They fought down her sowen, and as she backed toward the fireplace and away from the door, Kozmer stuck the tip of his walking staff between her legs and tripped her. She went down in a heap.
Sarika dove for her legs, and Miklos pinned her arms, while the two elders—one a bladedancer, the other a firewalker—combined forces to hold her sowen in place. Already weakened, her strength collapsed. She screamed in helpless rage as they hoisted her in the air. Someone kicked the door open, and they hauled her outside.
Miklos leaned in as they carried her off. “You seemed to have forgotten that I was there, too, helping you kill that accursed firewalker. Helping you steal his sowen. And I’ve been on the plains these past weeks, gaining power. Did you think I wouldn’t come to their aid, or are you really that far gone as to think you could defeat me anyway?”
In response, she spit in his face.
#
They were halfway up from the cottages to the baths when Katalinka’s anger broke like a dam collapsing from heavy rains, and she realized what she’d done. They were struggling to drag her up a thick stairway that passed between the bakery and stacked wood for the ovens when she broke down in tears.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Put me down, I can walk. I won’t cause any more trouble, I promise.”
“We’re not fools,” Sarika snapped. She was still gasping from the fight. “You’ll be carried every step of the way, and then we’ll tie your blasted hands behind your back.”
“Let her down,” Kozmer said. “Let her walk.”
The firewalker sohn stared. “Are you mad?”
“Narina was like this, too,” the old man said. “One moment hostile, the next contrite. The fight has gone out of her. For now.”
His tone was condescending to Katalinka’s ears, and the anger briefly threatened to return before she fought it down. Her temper was a heap of dry brush, and even the smallest insult or perceived insult was a flaming branch that threatened to send the whole thing up in a raging bonfire. She couldn’t let that happen. She understood that now; somehow she had to maintain self-control.
“Let me remind you that Narina freed herself and ran off in the end,” Miklos told the elder. He had his arms under Katalinka’s and was carrying her torso. “Someone taken by the curse can’t be trusted—it will come for her soon enough and then she’ll be at our throats again.”
“I’m all right,” Katalinka said, and she meant it. “I’ll do what you tell me to.”
“Don’t treat her like an enemy,” Kozmer said. “She deserves better than that. And it gives us a better chance to pull her out of this.”
“Fine,” Sarika said. “But don’t take your eyes off her, or she might try that blasted shadow trick again.”
They let her walk after that. Her emotions gyrated wildly between shame and anger. They treated her like a rabid dog. Humiliating. And enraging. Both emotions were misplaced in their way. They didn’t deserve her anger—she’d have done the same thing in their place—and of course there was nothing to be ashamed about. She was contaminated, and these murderous thoughts weren’t her own.
The two elders kept prodding at her. From Kozmer, it was a gentle touch, almost like a caress, the way a parent would soothe a feverish child. Drazul, on the other hand, was warily tugging at the darkened thread within her sowen, as if trying to pluck it out.
“You’re right,” Drazul said to Kozmer. “It’s not fixed in place, not an integral part of her. It could theoretically be drawn out.”
“We know that already,” Miklos said. He fingered the crystal feathers on a thong around his throat.
“Leave me alone,” Katalinka said, but it came out muttered, without any heat. “I don’t want you touching me. If you let me be, it will go away on its own.”
“Stop struggling,” Sarika said.
“I’m not struggling!”
“You’re arguing,” the woman said. “That’s another way of struggling. Maybe you’re fooling yourself, but you’re not fooling us. You’re hoping to wriggle off the hook, nothing more.”
“The baths will cure her,” Drazul said.
Katalinka highly doubted that. In fact, with every step up the hillside, she found herself dreading them more and more. They’d send her into the water, order her to meditate, and then claw at her with their sowens. It would be the opposite of relaxation. She needed a way to escape from here. If only she had her swords.
Or someone else’s sword.
Except that none of the other five carried a weapo
n, either. Not even Miklos, whom she’d never seen before without his falchion strapped to his back. But the warbrand was a suspicious sort, wasn’t he? The man would hardly go about unarmed in someone else’s temple. She reached out cautiously, her sowen cloaked in shadow, and searched him.
Yes, there it was, a bright, sharp aura beneath his cloak. A dagger, nothing big, but forged at the warbrand temple, and the most lethal object any of them were carrying. His sowen stirred, and she withdrew hastily.
They shortly reached the baths, situated on a grassy rise with a view toward the shrine, which gleamed below with a fresh coat of lacquer. Fraters were still working on the exterior, in fact, sanding and applying lacquer with horsehair brushes. Other fraters and students had scaled ladders to the roof, which dripped as the morning sunlight melted the cap of ice that had apparently formed in the night. They had pulled up a number of broken roof tiles to replace them.
“Go on, Katalinka,” Kozmer urged. “It’s time to enter the baths.”
She gave him a sharp look. “What’s that in your voice? What’s this you’re planning?”
The false note she’d picked up on rang even more dissonant. “I didn’t say this would be easy,” he said.
She studied the baths, more suspicious than ever. Water flowed from a channel leading from the brook, where it divided into one of three pools, each big enough for three people at a time. The first of the pools could be heated, although typically they only did that in the winter, when the ice needed to be broken and cleared from the stone channel to allow water to flow. That initial shock of cold water did more than anything to cleanse one’s sowen.
Now, a pair of bladedancer fraters and three firewalkers were finishing their task raking out leaves and mouse nests from the brick-lined oven beneath the heated pool. They’d hauled up buckets of charcoal from the smithy, which surprised her a little. Normally, the pool was heated with kiln-dried firewood, a much less valuable commodity.
“Is this your doing?” she asked the firewalkers. “Is a scalding bath part of your ritual or something?”
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