And with that the little man eased into the darkness with a torch in either hand waving to his sides. It was a painful sight, watching him diminish into the cave’s dark, uncertain he would survive the next step, but within a wick’s time the Squirrel turned and waved both torches above his head.
Pikarn came to his feet and several wardens rushed ahead with spear and shield in formation until they reached the stairs. As the stragglers caught up, the Wolverine nodded to Rinold. “You keep the lead, rest of you I don’t care about the order except the girl stays in the middle—I want her and that book kept cozy.”
Rinold returned Puxele’s torch and scooted up the first couple steps. The light from torches all around cast a wild array of shadows as men shuffled and jostled, waiting for their turn, and for a flicker as the Squirrel bound up a stair, Ivin’s heart froze. It’d been a trick of his eye, whatever he thought he’d seen was gone.
Suvarn followed, catching his toe, throwing out a hand against the wall to catch himself and his torch fluttered in his hand. From the creases of the rock a shadow moved with instead of against the flame’s flare. Suvarn smiled, embarrassed by his clumsy move, but his smile gaped into a silent scream and his eyes flew wide.
Ivin screamed, “No!” A hand of black stretched from the stone of the wall, plunging into Suvarn’s chest, lifting the man who weighed at least seventy stones as if he were nothing more than a puppet.
The warrior didn’t make a sound as his torch and sword clattered to the stone floor. The Shadow launched Suvarn from the second stair and hammered him into the ground, the black form plunging into the dying man’s chest, and all Ivin could do was stare. Suvarn’s hands and feet flailed as the creature invaded his flesh, but Ivin knew it wasn’t because he put up a fight.
Puxele screamed and pulled her scimitar, slashing the disappearing Shadow, but the steel was as ineffective as attacking smoke.
There was a rush of feet across the hall and the wardens turned with shouts. Robed figures rushed from the dark, screeching in the warbling howls of men choking on their own tongues. Even as he planted his feet and brought his sword around two more wardens were dying, one with a broken neck, the other with a hand sticking from his gut. The cave, moments before silent and at peace, raged with the echoes of combat and dying.
Ivin buckled under the weight of a priest as it crashed into his shield, and he slid in someone’s blood before setting his feet to throw the thing back. It came again, punched his shield with shoulder-jarring force, but he slipped the blow and plunged the sword through the back of its head as he spun.
Gore splashed up his forearm as he drove the blade so deep the skull clunked on the sword’s guard. The weight of the falling priest pulled his sword down, straining to strip the weapon from his grip, but instead of letting go he went to a knee, and wrenched the blade from the priest’s head.
Ivin stood in time for Meliu to dive behind him with a priest in chase. His broadsword cleaved the top of the priest’s skull and it collapsed, shaking on the ground in joint-breaking fits. Ivin grabbed the girl, pulling her to her feet. Torches lit the area, but most lay on the ground, sputtering as they soaked in blood.
Five dead priests, and seven surviving wardens, plus Meliu. Worms of Shadow protruded from Suvarn, wriggling their way into his body. Ivin stood in shock, he didn’t want to believe his eyes.
He backed from Rinold until running into Puxele.
Meliu said, “We need to leave. He’ll be coming for us soon enough.”
Pikarn said, “Gods help us, can we kill him now?”
The priestess shook her head. “Not so easy as you might think, it sets them in a fury and the Shadow’s freed.”
“How long’ve we got?”
“A candle at most, half maybe. Long enough we can make it to the Fool’s Haul, I hope. And these priests… the Shadows will come from the stone not long after.”
In the light of a torch lying next to a priest’s body, the thick black blood soaked into the stone as he saw earlier, but now he could see a tiny maggot of Shadow wriggling from the pool. “What the hells?”
“I told you, the Shadows will come. We aren’t running for our lives, we’re running for our souls.”
The group snatched torches and made their way up the stairs. Three strides and hop, three strides and hop, the rhythm burned his thighs and wracked his lungs, and still he fell behind. He slowed, but not by choice, his legs didn’t want to go another step. He leaned against the wall, and a couple wardens eased past as he stared to where he wished a sky was, but all he could see was an icy white snowflake glowing in a golden fresco.
Ivin’s exhausted mind saw the Shadow too late to shout as it scrambled up the stone wall like a spider and with the speed of a bat in flight, attacked. Entangled with the Shadow, the warrior and Shadow plunged from the stairs. Ivin watched in horror as the man’s torch disappeared into the dark, realizing how Shadows left pockmarks in the stone.
Pikarn said, “Move it! Move on!”
IVIN’S LEGS ached and shook from exertion by the time they reached the top, but stopping for a few flickers to drink seemed suicidal, let alone take time for rest. Still, they waited a couple wicks for everyone to reach the top. Ivin fumbled with shaky hands for his waterskin and squeezed water into his mouth, choking the fluid down before kneeling. When the last wardens dragged themselves over the top, they rested for several wicks, but not a soul wanted to linger longer than needed.
Pikarn gave the order. “Keep the pace steady, and stick together. No one gets lost, you hear?”
They forced their legs to move, running, stumbling, walking, anything that propelled them forward. Ivin was beyond exhausted by the time they burst from the cave and into bright afternoon sun. The frozen air assaulted his lungs so hard he collapsed to his knees, and Meliu cried amid fits of catching her breath. Unlo and Fularn both collapsed strides outside the mouth of the cave and Puxele leaned on Pikarn. Chest heaving, and his balance staggered, the Wolverine kept his feet while helping one of his own. Rinold strolled from the cave, the only one who didn’t look like he was about to die.
Puxele sprinkled diamond dust across the entrance, sporting a pained grin. “It can’t hurt.”
They pressed on quick as they were able, and when they rounded the corner to the camp the Wolverine bellowed, “Modan!” But all that remained were their fifteen horses. Shoulders wilted, and they stared.
Rinold checked the fire pit. “Cold.”
Pikarn cursed as he strode to the middle of camp. “Something spooked ’em, or they gave chase. But we can’t be sitting on our asses and waiting for ’em. Gather the gear, load up the horses.”
Pikarn dragged his heel through the campfire, forming a black “X” on the ground with a mark pointing southeast, while others gathered food and supplies. They rode from camp with a string of riderless horses after throwing on saddles and reins.
They reached the edge of the Omindi Pass, and the sliding trails down the slope of scree, marked by blood and horse hair, made it obvious Modan’s wardens rode in a hurry. The party dismounted and led their horses down the slope, and Rinold wandered the area looking for signs.
The Squirrel scratched his head as he walked north several strides. “Looks like they turned south toward Ervinhin but spun and rode north faster than a whore’s kiss. And here’s the kicker, Colok gave chase.”
The Wolverine kicked a rock and glared north. “Son of a godsdamned whoreson, gotta be shittin’ me.”
The Wolverine stomped over to a flat face of rock and scrawled an X with a longer line pointing south with a charred branch. They swung into their saddles and rode south with their string of horses in tow as a fresh flurry fluttered on the winds.
If the Wolverine had a plan, he kept it to himself, and attempts at conversation met discouraging grumbles. Ivin rode beside Meliu, so sore and tired his thoughts scrambled back and forth from priests and Shadows to being happy to be alive under an open sky.
Puxele rode on the opposi
te side of the girl. “Suvarn is one of them?”
The girl nodded. “Every time I seen a Shadow kill, it took the body.”
“And those not killed by Shadows?”
“Plenty of bodies never rose again. I think the Shadows need the living host.”
“They were waiting for us at the stair, weren’t they?” Ivin asked. This notion bugged him. He wanted to believe the creatures were mindless killers.
“Can’t say for sure, could I?” Meliu sighed, shrugged, adjusted the book in her arms. “I seen things, though. They have a cunning.”
The Wolverine said, “Quit your yappin’ and eyes up. I’d like to make it to the foothills alive.”
Ivin fell quiet without the customary jerked beef offering and pinned his eyes to the walls of the pass. Neither Shadows, priests, nor Colok threatened and a candle after sunset they arrived at Ervinhin.
Pikarn yelled to a guard as the log gate creaked open. “Modan here?”
“No, sir. We ain’t seen anyone for candles.”
“Son of a godsdamned whoreson… Secure the gates, but I want four men on the watch all night, you hear me? Unlo, Fularn, get the horses to the stable. Rinold, you head for the inn and make sure we got the best food, beers, and beds waiting for us. Puxele, Choerkin, and Miss Meliu, let’s take a walk to the house of the dead.”
The priestess didn’t budge, her jaw set.
The Wolverine stood mute, but Ivin put a hand on her shoulder. “One of your people may still be alive; wouldn’t it be good to know who?”
She shrugged his hand from her shoulder and glared, but didn’t argue as she took the Wolverine’s lead. She strode into the dark portal and exhaled a deep breath before lanterns lit. Her face twisted as she glanced at the corpses. “Lein.” She muttered a prayer and touched two fingers to her forehead. “The, uh… the head is Loepus’.” She craned her neck over a body for a better view of the faces and stood straight. “Tokodin. He’s not here.”
Ivin glanced at her. “Anything special about him?”
“A monk, with especially bad luck at dice, that’s about it. I’ve known him since we were children.”
Pikarn said, “One monk doesn’t outrun Colok nor stand a chance in a fight. Might be he fell from a cliff earlier, or got lucky, left for dead. We’ll have folks keep an eye out for him. Puxele, show this young lady to the inn for food and room for the night.”
When the room emptied the Wolverine turned to Ivin. “They took a prisoner, I’m betting on it. Twice now.”
Changes often came like storms in the mountains, surprising a man, but snow and gale winds were a force of nature; the Colok would need a specific reason to change their ways. “What the hells would Colok want with a holy?”
Pikarn’s throat rumbled. “I can think of a dozen things I’d do with a holy, maybe the Colok hold grudges, too. Colok’re up to somethin’ and so are the damned holies.”
“We got war brewing between Colok and Istinjoln?” The words felt tainted by optimism the moment he muttered them, and he expected another comment about his being his mother’s boy.
“Might be, but it sniffs of a skunk in the henhouse to me: Just because you smell it don’t mean it’s there. Find a meal and bed and we’ll see what breakfast brings.”
Ivin skipped the food and went straight for the down-ticked cot without a care for what dreams might come. Whatever they brought wouldn’t compare to his day.
20
BLOOD IN THE BRIAR
The Griffon’s severed wings flail the grass,
Feathered fish floundering,
Leaving Lion to hunt savannah instead of eyrie.
Are you the Griffon, the lion, the wings?
The claws clutching grass instead of clouds?
Who are you to complain with words without wings?
—Tomes of the Touched
Eight Days to the Eve of Snows
Eliles awoke and attended morning prayers as she ever did, but with a secret sewn into the hem of her robes. It wasn’t the greatest hiding place, but other options nibbled at her paranoia. The message scared her, not only it could get her killed, but the monastery had been quiet, no one leaving. What did it mean if the lord priest sent no one to help?
Every word of the scroll was a matter for her betters, not her. I’m unholy, defiled, what do I care what troubles they bring on themselves? Done with the whole thing, that’s what she was. Onward to the Divining of Bones and the priesthood, out of Istinjoln forever.
But first, the kitchen to listen.
She plopped next to a blazing hearth, opened her book, and bit a roll slathered in honey. Raucous kitchen chatter kept to culinary business this morning. Talk of eggs and chickens, pork and kegs, as well as potatoes and onions. But as she thought of leaving a young maid scurried down the stairs with the hem of her dress in her hand, sweating and breathless.
“A priest… a priest, dead. Thrown to the thorns.”
Kitchen tongues wagged in a cacophony of exclamations and questions, but Eliles knew who lay in the thorns and why. With everyone’s eyes on the maid, Eliles popped the loose seam in her sleeve and slipped the parchment into the hearth’s fire, watching it burn to ashes from the corner of her eye. She wanted to run, to make certain the body was Rovol’s, but instead she took the stairs leading to the bailey.
Guilt bristled in her innards, but it was a single quill on the porcupine of her fears. If they knew he copied the message, they might’ve forced her name from his lost memory. If they didn’t have her name, did they wait to see who rushed to witness the scene, or did they wait to see who didn’t turn out? If they knew, she should flee. If they didn’t know, was there a correct answer?
The wind howled and whipped as she stepped into the bailey, but her emotions numbed her face to the cold. She glanced to the main gate, then to the southern wall outside which grew the thorns. She jumped as a young postulant darted from nowhere, grabbing her hand, yanking on her.
Twelve years old and bursting with more energy than normal, Sandele’s flint-gray eyes gazed at her with gravity. “Eliles! Someone was thrown to the thorns! Come on!”
She feigned surprise. She couldn’t deny the urgent tugs from the one girl of hundreds who treated her like a friend rather than freak or idol.
They climbed a stair and joined a burgeoning crowd. Beyond the parapets lay brown robes entangled in a thick mass of vines. The deadly plants curling the length of the wall bore spikes four inches long, and those convicted of crimes against the Pantheon were cast from the wall alive. Covered in blood, she couldn’t discern the man’s face, but the blood from his mouth likely meant his tongue cut out, fitting the crime she’d made him commit.
The body could be hers, with robes shredded from struggling with the vines before bleeding out. It should be her. It still could be her. She planted her hands on the wall to keep steady.
“I wonder what he did to deserve this?” she asked no one in particular.
Jumel, a priestess in her first year of vows, cast Eliles an uncaring glance, her voice callous. “Looks like that randy librarian. My bet is he took leave with a forbidden tome. Or perhaps hiked his robes on the wrong gal.”
The girls covered nervous giggles with their hands.
Eliles went along with the banter. “Maybe, but we don’t know. Leastwise, we won’t have to sit through another funeral for this one.”
Because they left the bodies to feed the soil around the vines. She loathed being so cold to a man she’d killed, but cold equaled survival. She turned for the stairs as the girls discussed their good fortune.
Free from the wall, Eliles decided on Dareun’s chambers. A reasonable enough choice for an innocent postulant to seek her master. She slipped into the tunnels and tossed her hood back, trying to look inconspicuous and calm despite wanting to jump every time she met someone round a corner. Dareun’s door stood open, so she strode straight in.
She should have knocked.
Woxlin sat with a scroll spread on the table. �
��Good morning, Eliles.”
“Ah, my girl!” She took solace in Dareun’s pleasant tone, but still felt she might throw up.
She bowed to both. “I was stopping by to return this book.”
Dareun smiled and took the tome, plopped it on the table.
Her thoughts danced wild with the rhythm of her heart. She couldn’t be covering her anxiety, they stared, she had to speak. “Someone was Thrown to the Thorns. A priest. It’s horrible.”
Woxlin stood so fast his chair rattled on the floor. “What? There’ve been no trials.”
Dareun said, “A suicide of penitence isn’t unheard of.”
Eliles felt an embarrassing tear and stiffened. “A crowd gathered on the wall. The face, covered in blood from the mouth like that monk had his tongue ripped out when I was a child.” The memory haunted her dreams for years.
“Murder isn’t unheard of either.” Woxlin sighed, rolled his parchment. “You’ll excuse me, of course; we’ll have to discuss your possible replacement another time.” He put his hand on her shoulder before he left. “Don’t worry, we will find the killer, if there is one, and they will be punished. Gods have ways to reveal the guilty.”
Revealing, torturing, and killing. She felt as if the man toyed with her, but this was her guilt talking. She hated how much fun she’d had the night before, teasing the fool for her own gains. She sat and gazed at the door as it swung shut.
“You knew the man?”
“Maybe, someone said it might be Rovol, the librarian.”
Dareun sat beside her. “A man worth your tears?”
Girl be damned, he noticed. “It isn’t him, it’s that boy. Long ago.” She knew this would make sense to him, a valuable key to a lie.
“You quivered and shook for two days because it proved what might become of you if they found out your feral magic. I told you then it was horrific, but to use it as a lesson.”
“We should take lessons from the dead as we do the living.”
Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One Page 18
