At last the witch raised his head. Staring into the sky, he addressed the others without turning back to them, as if narrating a vision that was unfolding before his eyes as he spoke.
“They died in combat. Not against each other. I see a third one, that killed them both. First the small one was attacked, and this one was drawn to the noise of combat.” He paused, his brow furrowing tightly from the intensity of his concentration. “I sense . . . victory without joy . . . terrible emptiness . . . an awareness that this is but the last in a long, long line of deaths. It’s finally over now. No more killing is needed. The offenders are gone.” He rubbed his head. “That’s all I can get, I’m sorry. The trace is very old.”
“Did the third one look like these two?” Colivar asked quietly.
The Seer shut his eyes for a moment, trying to remember details. “No. No. It was . . . thinner than the others. Sleeker. It had broader wings, with trailing bits . . . and no spikes. These two had spikes running down their spines, but not the killer.”
Colivar drew in a sharp breath.
Ramirus looked at him. “A female?”
Colivar hesitated, then nodded stiffly. He didn’t dare respond aloud, lest his tone of voice reveal too much. Fragments of memory were beginning to take form in his brain now: jeweled wings, noxious orange clouds, and blue-black spines slicked with poison. He shook his head, trying to banish them. Hating himself, for letting Ramirus see how much this moment was affecting him.
He shouldn’t have come here.
“There is more.” The Seer paused, then pointed toward the west. “That way.”
“More ikati?” Favias asked.
The Seer hesitated. “I’m not sure. I sense more death. But it isn’t clear what the source is.”
All eyes turned to Salvator. After a moment the High King nodded. “Lead us,” he ordered Herzog.
With a tense nod, the trapper obeyed. Salvator’s guards clustered closely around the High King as the party fell into line once more, eager to protect him. Foolish effort! As if mounted soldiers could protect Salvator from the kind of predator that could freeze men’s souls with a glance! Likely they would simply stand there paralyzed if their master was attacked, frozen in helpless horror as they watched him die.
At least that would give them something substantial to repent, Colivar thought dryly.
Herzog led the way as ordered, but he did not look nearly as confident about his path as he had been earlier. Periodically he stopped to consult with the Seer who had touched the skeleton. The latter seemed to be having a hard time translating his mystical visions into practical directions.
And then they found the bodies.
They had been traveling along a dried river bed flanked by steep granite walls on both sides. Frequent rock falls had strewn obstacles all along the path, which made for slow going. They were just coming around a bend in the valley, skirting a particularly bad stretch of turf, when Herzog pulled up his horse suddenly and cursed under his breath. Immediately all the guards reached for their weapons, but there was no attack forthcoming. With a trembling hand Herzog pointed to the path ahead of them, which only he could see. Finally Favias waved for the Guardians to follow him and urged his horse forward, past the trapper’s position. When he could finally see what was around the bend, he, too, pulled up short, and Colivar heard him beseech the gods for mercy under his breath.
One by one the rest of the party followed them, and Colivar could hear several men whispering prayers as they did so. He had taken up the rear himself so as to have a bit of privacy with his thoughts, thus he was the last to come around the bend and see what awaited them.
Bones.
Hundreds of bones. Thousands of them. Skeletons had been shattered on the rocks on all sides, and the river bed was littered with broken shards. The arrangement suggested scavengers tearing bodies to pieces, fighting over scraps, carrying choice bits off to gnaw them in privacy . . . which suggested in turn that the skeletons had still had flesh on them when they were first cast down here.
The men were dismounting now to take a closer look. Only the Seer remained on horseback, using his higher vantage point to keep a watchful eye over the site, alert to incoming danger. He was shaking, Colivar noted. That was another difference between sorcerers and witches. It was unlikely any Magister would be so unnerved by the mere sight of death.
Yet even Colivar could feel the eerie quality of the place raise goosebumps along his flesh as he dismounted. How many people had died here? How many miles away were the nearest centers of human population from which they must have been brought? Was there some reason that people had come here of their own accord, then wreaked such destruction upon themselves? Or had someone gathered up all these bodies, brought them here, and left them for animals to tear apart? Colivar’s soul was callous enough that the mere existence of the graveyard did not horrify him as it did the morati, yet the questions it raised were . . . disturbing.
He walked to where Ramirus stood, near a particularly precarious rock pile where several whole skeletons were located, and for a moment they both just stared at the scene in silence.
The skeletons were all those of children. Infants, mostly, whose tiny skulls had been crushed. A few larger skulls could be seen here and there, and one or two long bones that might have belonged to older children were wedged in between the rocks, but the overall purpose of this place was clear. Babies had been cast down onto these rocks like refuse.
Why?
Colivar hesitated, then reached down and picked up one of the smaller bones. A tiny phalange, fragment of a forgotten finger. He knew that there was risk in using any sorcery here, as the queen might be able to sense it, but he could not resist the temptation. Turning the small bone over in his hand, he let his sorcery seep into it, seeking its history. Lost lost lost lost fear hunger cold cold COLD! . . . Mama! Mama! He saw a baby hurtling down from out of the sky, then another. Dead. They were both dead, even before they fell. This was a garbage heap, nothing more. The actual killing had taken place elsewhere.
For some strange reason that comforted him.
“Hunger,” Ramirus muttered. He had a bone in his own hand, a long femur scored with the tooth marks of some hungry beast. “These bones cry out with hunger . . . and with fear.”
Colivar closed his fist about his own specimen, exploring that concept. “This one was offered food, but not in a form he could digest.” He could feel the spasms of an infant vomiting resonate in his own body as he absorbed that information, and he quickly dropped the bone, severing the sorcerous connection. The hot bile that had risen suddenly in his throat settled down again. He picked up another bone, that of an older child. “This one was too afraid to eat,” he observed.
The crunch of boots on gravel was approaching them from behind. Several pair, at least. Neither of the Magisters turned around..
“What is this place?” Favias asked from behind them.
“A graveyard for children,” Ramirus said quietly, “Apparently cast down here after their deaths.”
“Cast down how?”
It took Colivar a moment to realize what the man was asking. Shutting his eyes for a moment, he brought back to mind the vision that the tiny bone had granted him. Seeking the information that mattered most.
“Dropped from overhead,” he said at last. “From directly overhead.”
A hawk might lift an infant in its talons and smash it down onto the rocks, like a gull cracking abalone, but there was only one species that had the size and the strength to carry larger children aloft. But why? Ikati did not require physical contact with their prey in order to feed on their life-essence; that was what made them so very dangerous. And if one of them had wanted meat, then why would it have cast its own meal down onto the rocks? The vision that Colivar had conjured showed a whole infant hurtling down from the sky, its flesh unbroken. It simply made no sense.
From behind them, Herzog coughed. “Begging your Magisters’ pardon, but the children that hav
e been reported missing in this region . . . might these be them? If a Souleater brought them here, that would explain why there was no trail for witches to find.”
“But would a Souleater steal children?” Salvator wondered aloud. “And only to kill them? It makes no sense.”
Colivar opened his mouth to respond—to tell the High King that this place was a mystery to him as well—when suddenly he felt it. A sound just beyond the threshold of hearing that resonated silently in his flesh. A tremor in the fabric of the universe that set all of reality to vibrating like a plucked harp string. Glancing at Ramirus, he could see from the expression on the other Magister’s face that he had felt it, too. None of the others had. Not even the witches.
Which could mean only one thing.
“She’s coming,” he whispered.
Favias turned and shouted an order to his people. Dismounting quickly, the Guardians took up their bows and nocked blue-tipped arrows in readiness. The other members of the party followed their lead and dismounted also, looking about nervously for cover as they did so. The Guardians didn’t bother with that. They understood that physical barriers were meaningless at this point. Either they could draw the Souleater down to them, within range of their weapons, or they were all dead men.
A growing heat suffused Colivar’s flesh as he watched them make their preparations. Strange instincts warred within him. He wanted to run. He wanted to meld himself into the shadows, so he could not be seen. He wanted to stand atop the tallest pile of bones, spread out his arms, and welcome the ikati queen. Was all that the result of her power playing upon his mind, or was memory playing tricks on his soul?
Careful, Colivar, careful. This is the real test now, by which all Magisters will judge you. Ramirus seemed unaffected, he noted. Outside of the man’s commitment to protect Gwynofar, he had little emotional investment in this campaign, and he could watch the battle with impunity, shielded by his sorcery, until it became necessary to conjure a portal and flee. Or so he no doubt thought. But who was to say that any sorcery would work properly in a queen’s presence? Unlike male ikati, she had the ability to direct her mesmeric power against her own species, and that had especially dark implications for the Magisters. Should Colivar warn Ramirus about that? He couldn’t think clearly enough to decide.
“There!” a voice cried out suddenly. One of the Guardians was pointing upward.
She was no more than a black spot against the sun at this point, but a hot thrill ran up Colivar’s spine as he caught sight of her. Several of the guards looked up briefly, then shrugged and looked away. That was the result of her power, convincing them that what they had seen was of no consequence. The fact that she could influence their minds from such a distance was truly daunting; Colivar had not known that such a thing was possible. Or perhaps he had just forgotten that it was possible.
He could feel her mesmerism lapping at his brain now, but he knew all the tricks of seeing past it. Staring at the open sky to one side of her, he let his peripheral awareness gather information for him. The more you focused directly on a queen, the more power she had over you. He remembered that now. He was remembering so much now. The illusions he had woven about his life were beginning to give way as she approached, like slivers of fine vellum curling away from a flame. False memories, adopted over time to protect him from the real ones, fell to pieces around him. He felt strangely naked, stripped of that self-deception. And for perhaps the first time in centuries, a flicker of genuine fear took root in his soul.
As the distant black shape moved away from the sun, allowing men to stare directly at it, Colivar could pick out the people whose resistance was strongest. Gwynofar, of course. She was struggling to stay focused, but at least she was looking in the right direction. Salvator was by her side, and he did not seem to be straining at all. The gift of the lyr was strong in him. What was this creature in the eyes of his faith? Some kind of terrible demon? An emissary from his destroyer-god, sent to earth to punish mankind for his many iniquities? Beast or demon, it was clear from the way Salvator gripped his weapon that he was ready and willing to do combat with it.
But the queen did not come down toward them. She remained circling high above, frustratingly out of range of their weapons. A simple ikati would not have known to do that. It would have wanted a closer look, and closed some of that distance. Which meant that this creature was something more than a mere ikati.
She is from the northern colony, Colivar thought. He had known that all along, of course—there was no other possible explanation for her presence here—but a chill ran down his spine nonetheless, to have it finally confirmed. As for what that meant to him . . . .
“What is the issue with sorcery?” Ramirus’ voice carried just enough power to guarantee that the morati would not hear him. “Your warning about the Souleater skeleton. What was that about?”
Colivar hesitated. He knew just how much an honest answer would reveal. Too much. Yet the need was undeniable. And they were allies now, weren’t they? At least when it came to these creatures.
If you knew where my knowledge came from, Ramirus, this battle would be the least of your concerns.
Finally he said, “If you connect to a Souleater directly, you may die. I’m not sure about that. It’s never been tested. But the risk is there.”
A white eyebrow arched delicately upward. “And you think this . . . why?”
Colivar did not answer. He could feel Ramirus’ power lapping at the edges of his brain, trying to pry loose some shard of useful information, but it was only a token effort. They both knew his mental shields were too strong to be breached so casually.
Then one of the Guardians lifted up his hands, as if to channel a cry toward the heavens. He was going to try the same trick that Rhys had used outside Danton’s castle, to draw the Souleater to him. That will not help you with a female, Colivar thought. But he held his tongue as the man let loose the sharp, piercing cry. Yet another thing he could not admit to knowing.
This time, he could feel the cry resound in his flesh. This time, it was meant for him.
High overhead the ikati queen did not so much as pause in her wingstroke, but her power began to lap down over the party with increasing intensity. Two of the horses tried to pull back against their reins, and Colivar saw that the warrior who reached out to steady them stumbled slightly as he did so. One of the archers put out his hand to a nearby boulder to steady himself, as the strength in his legs began to fail him. Salvator’s witch seemed about to perform some kind of spell when he lost his concentration, swayed, and then went down heavily on one knee. Colivar saw Ramirus glance over at Salvator, who seemed startled by his witch’s fall; clearly whatever strategy the High King had prepared for that day had depended upon this man’s talents. The High King moved over to where the man knelt and helped him to his feet, refusing to meet the Magisters’ eyes as he did so. Even in the face of death he would accept no help from one of their kind. Colivar was both amazed and appalled. Did he think that stubbornness alone would save him?
You damned fool, Salvator! You will die here along with all your people, in the name of that idiotic faith of yours. Who will benefit from that, other than our enemy?
And then suddenly Gwynofar thrust her spear into the ground, ran the largest rock heap, and began to climb. Startled, Salvator called her back, but she ignored him. One of the royal guards ran up to her, but he hesitated an instant before grappling with the Queen Mother . . . and then she was out of reach. He struggled to catch up with her but in doing so dislodged several large rocks and lost his footing; he hit the ground hard and then lay still.
Colivar watched in fascination as Gwynofar worked her way up the rock pile. The climb was treacherous, but her altered muscles had been designed for just such a task, and compared to the monument in Alkali, this was practically a promenade on the garden path. Even with the steel cuirass she wore and the heavy sword sheathed across her back, she seemed to have little difficulty making the climb. Within severa
l minutes she had gained the top of the mound, and she moved across it with an almost animal alacrity. Colivar conjured an overhead view to watch her, and he saw that in one place there was a pile of sun-bleached bones. She was moving steadily toward that now, tiny skeletons crunching underfoot with each step. When she reached the center of it, she stood up straight and tall, defying the waves of debilitating power that were beating down from above. Was she immune to the queen’s power, as her son appeared to be, or simply determined enough to overcome it? The elevation she had gained was minimal when measured against the ikati’s own position, but from his conjured perspective Colivar could see that her new placement set her apart from the rest of the morati, and the macabre nest of bones that lay at her feet would draw the Souleater’s eye directly to her.
She was offering herself as bait.
For a moment she stood there, just catching her breath. Colivar himself was hardly breathing. Did she understand what she was doing, in any conscious sense? Or was blind lyr instinct driving her now, and she was simply going along with it? A Souleater queen had no reason to answer a mating challenge such as the one the Guardian had performed; that was meant for the males of the species. But a female invading her territory was another matter. Would she recognize Gwynofar as a legitimate rival? Enough to be consumed by rage at the sight of her? Nothing else was likely to bring her down now that the witches were immobilized.
Drawing in a deep breath, Gwynofar spread her arms wide. And then she began to speak. Crying out to the Souleater with all her strength, willing her voice to be carried upward by the wind, clear and true. And there was more than mere volume to her words. Colivar could see power shimmering about her skin, but not a structured spellcasting. Something more organic, more innate. Lyr magic? Was that of her own conjuring, or had some Seer in the party prepared her for this? If the Guardians had arranged for such a strategy in advance, then they had more knowledge of the Souleaters than Colivar had given them credit for.
Legacy of Kings Page 18
