And thankfully, not Nilo or Eljas Hennoch, Pollard amended. Thrane considered all mortals to be interchangeable and expendable. Pollard knew better, and there were key people he would do everything in his power to protect, not for sentiment’s sake, but because without them, his army could not function. Pollard had no illusions about how long his life would last if he ever ceased to be useful, either to Reese or to Thrane. Whatever it takes to win a crown.
A quiet moan escaped the captive’s lips. Even in the lantern light, Pollard could see that the man had paled. Reese lacked the strength to tear into the artery, but his puckered lips closed around the wrist greedily, suckling the warm skin as the captive sagged against the bed frame. Pollard had seen talishte drain a man dry in minutes. Reese’s weakness would likely prolong this death. Pollard felt nauseous.
Still, since Reese’s release and the withdrawal of the stake that had pierced Reese’s heart, the raw, agonizing sore on Pollard’s chest had stopped its constant throbbing and begun to scab over. One of the talishte gentled Reese out of his filthy rags, while another soaked a cloth in the washbowl and began to wipe Reese’s wrinkled, atrophied body from head to toe, cleansing away the poisonous powders used by his captors to torment him. Pollard could see the deep cuts where toxic ropes had cut into Reese’s wrists and ankles. He knew the location of Reese’s wounds well, since he bore their mirror image on his own body, a result of their kruvgaldur bond. So do Garin and all of Reese’s get, Pollard thought. But out of all the other mortals he’s put in his thrall, I appear to be the only one bound so tightly that his wounds are mine. I’d feed him a thousand peasants to be rid of the damn itching and the constant pain.
“Let me through.” Thrane pushed through the doorway, and with a jerk of his head, dismissed all of the talishte except Garin, who was still holding the captive’s wrist against Reese’s mouth. Thrane gave a hiss of displeasure as he saw Reese, and let out a string of curses at the sight of his damaged blood-son.
“Has he spoken?” Thrane stared at Reese with a combination of concern and uneasiness.
Garin shook his head. “No. He’s barely feeding. He’s weak and not fully conscious. Give him time.”
“We will hunt down the Elder Council for what they did to him,” Thrane vowed. “We will destroy their broods, take their lands, seize their crypts. I want nothing of them to remain. Nothing.”
“How will you do it?” Pollard’s voice seemed loud in the underground chamber.
“What?” Thrane barely seemed to have heard him, his attention fixed on Reese.
“How will you punish Penhallow and the others?”
The question was not idle curiosity. Pollard knew Thrane’s vanity. A plan clever enough to thwart the plans of the now-disbanded Elder Council would be a point of pride for Thrane, and boasting about it might improve his mood, raising the odds of survival for everyone. Pollard had learned long ago that any knowledge he could gain from his talishte allies stood him in good stead when it came to keeping what little autonomy he retained. For now, he needed Reese and Thrane in order to win the crown of Donderath for himself. But that would not always be so, and when that day came, he would seize his freedom.
Someday, he thought, before forcing his mind away from the possibilities. Someday.
“We will draw them out with attacks on the mortals they hold so dear,” Thrane said. “Weaken their defenses by stretching them thin between our Meroven allies and the ambitions my agents have stoked in the Cross-Sea Kingdoms’ mad king. When their armies are destroyed and their mortal allies scattered, we will destroy them and their broods.” Anger transformed Thrane’s features, bringing a flush of blood to his cheeks and lighting his eyes with a vengeful glint.
Pollard did not doubt that Thrane meant every word. And we are all likely to go down in flames again because of it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WATCH YOUR HEADS!” NIKLAS THEILSSON shouted as a screeching black cloud descended on his soldiers. Thousands of frantically flapping wings stirred the air, their rhythm like a panicked heartbeat. Beaks drew blood and tore flesh, ripping hair from scalps. Talons raked faces and heads, and clawed at the horses’ flanks. Sparrows, hawks, falcons, and warblers were bound together in a bloody truce, their rage fixed on the soldiers, who ducked and dove, beating them away with bleeding hands.
It started with a hawk, harrying the men in the front line, plunging again and again at the soldiers until they ran from its talons and beak. More birds joined the hawk, and by every law of nature, the hawk should have gone after the smaller birds. Instead, they joined ranks, chasing the soldiers. On more than one occasion, Niklas had run into a bird angry for having its nest threatened. Those birds had never pursued his men for long, nor summoned a flock of their fellows to launch a full-scale attack with no discernible purpose but to wound and destroy.
Niklas swung his sword, slashing through the body of a falcon, spraying him with blood as the wings fluttered uselessly and the bird fell from the sky. All around him, soldiers swung at an airborne enemy so fleet that they could scarcely land a blow. Blood streamed from Niklas’s scalp and forehead where a kestrel dug its talons across his skin. Bloody gashes marked his horse’s hindquarters, and his legs and arms were cut and punctured where he had been too slow to beat back an attack.
“What in Raka is going on?” Ayers shouted. His sword connected with a large hawk, big enough that the outstretched talons might have taken off his whole scalp had they connected, and he hurled the bleeding remains to the ground.
“Keep fighting!” Niklas yelled back. “We can’t give up the ground we’ve gained!” All around his horse’s hooves lay the bloodied, mangled bodies of more birds than Niklas could quickly count.
These birds shouldn’t even be together, Niklas thought as he beat back the aerial attack. If they’re in sight of each other, they should be tearing each other to shreds—not ganging up on us. There has to be magic involved. Nothing about this is normal.
He was covered with blood and feathers, scratched as if he had crawled through a tangle of hawthorn or nettles, and wary of the beaks and talons that aimed for his eyes. All around him, seasoned soldiers swore and cried out in pain from the frenetic onslaught. Horses panicked, throwing their riders. Vultures and hawks swarmed the downed men, tearing at their flesh despite flailing arms and kicking boots, while ignoring the still bodies of dead birds on which they could feast without danger.
The cries of the birds were deafening, and their wings raised a cloud of dust. The birds dove at the horses’ heads, causing them to rear and bolt, forcing the riders to defend their mounts’ eyes and faces at the cost of their own defense.
Then just as quickly as they came, the shrieking, razor-beaked cloud vanished, winging away as if at a signal only they could hear. And as the cacophony of shrieks and angry cries was silenced, Niklas heard the sound of hoofbeats.
“Stand ready!” he shouted, still blinded by the grit in his eyes and the dust cloud that kept him from seeing more than a few feet ahead. He reined in his balky, skittish mount to face the real threat, the army he could hear but not yet see bearing down on them.
Dark figures on horseback emerged from the billowing dust, a legion of men in armor whose metal helmets were worked to resemble the skulls of wild animals, twisted in nightmarish ways to be terrifying, monstrous predators. The bridles of their horses held sharp steel horns or antlers that extended in front of the horses’ heads, and their mounts charged with heads lowered so that their steel blades were first to strike.
“Forward!” Niklas shouted as his line regrouped to meet the new assault. These new attackers were fresh to the fight, unlike Niklas’s battered troops. They swept forward like a tide, scything their swords as their mounts ran forward with their deadly blades leveled. One of them ran his sword through a soldier as the armored horse tore through the throat of the soldier’s mount. Niklas charged at the attackers, screaming a battle cry in sheer terror and frustration, rising in his stirrups to bring down
his heavy sword with full killing power.
The grassland that had been empty just a candlemark ago was awash in blood and bird carcasses. Severed limbs and grievously wounded bodies littered the ground as the clang of swords rang out over the flat fields and the thunder of hoofbeats made the ground vibrate. Niklas choked down his own fear at the nightmarish spectacle of the black-clad warriors with their skeletal riders and murderous horses. The battlefield smelled of offal and sweat, and the dust churned up by the fight stuck in the eyes, noses, and mouths of the soldiers.
Down the line, Niklas heard the cries of his men and the shrieks of dying horses. He could not afford to take his attention from his adversary. Long-limbed and powerful, clad in black with a helmet that resembled a monstrous wolf, the enemy fighter wielded his heavy sword like a professional soldier, not a ragtag marauder.
Niklas swung, and the wolf-masked man blocked the swing, though its momentum was enough to make the swords in their hands vibrate painfully with the shock of the blow. “Who are you?” Niklas shouted. “Who do you serve?”
In response, he received only a feral snarl and a lunging, wordless attack. Despite his long years of soldiering and the horrors he had seen of war, Niklas felt a frozen lump of fear in his belly at an enemy that seemed utterly heedless of its own safety.
“I will not lose today!” Niklas yelled defiantly, mustering all of his rage as he swung hard. He had maneuvered to be at his attacker’s side, in a place Niklas reckoned might be a blind spot. His blade sank deep into the rider’s arm, and Niklas let out a triumphant shout.
“They bleed!” he shouted to his struggling soldiers. “They can die! Lay them out, boys! Knock them down!”
The rider turned on him with a snarl, the low, mad growl of a rabid dog. Emboldened, Niklas blocked and thrust, driving his blade into the neck of the rider’s mount just behind where the hideous iron antlers were attached to the bridle. The horse shrieked and twisted, giving the rider no recourse but to focus on not being unseated. And in that moment, Niklas rushed forward, getting beneath the rider’s guard and sinking his bloodied sword into the rider’s side and out his belly. The rider fell backward as his dying horse bucked him free, sending the body to fall heavily to the ground.
To Niklas’s right, Ayers brought his blade in a powerful slash that decapitated his opponent. The severed head, masked with the metal skull of a nightmarish panther, fell to the ground, knocking the head itself from the helmet.
“They’re just men!” Ayers shouted. “Men can die!”
Terror turned to ugly rage as Niklas’s soldiers took the offensive. The steel horns and antlers made a frontal attack too dangerous, so Niklas and his men quickly learned to approach the riders from the side, to look for each helmet’s blind spot, and to strike at their opponents’ mounts as much as at the soldiers themselves, something they usually avoided. The horses, too, were at a disadvantage. As frightening and deadly as the sharpened steel horns and antlers were, they changed the natural movement of the horses, weighed down their heads, and slowed their reactions. Niklas’s soldiers rode forward screaming curses and obscenities, channeling their fury into the power of their strikes and the ferocity of their attack.
Dozens of Niklas’s men lay bleeding and dying on the trampled field, but dozens of the enemy lay slain as well. That meant despite their terrifying appearance and the initial advantage of their mounts’ helmets, the black-clad raiders were not immortal or untouchable, and Niklas’s soldiers fought all the harder in retribution for the fear the enemy had forced on them.
It’s turning, Niklas thought. We’re not losing anymore. We don’t have to win—just force them to retreat. If we survive and can fall back to protected positions, I’m willing to claim it as a victory.
The marauders, with their nightmare masks, had not counted on a foe that did not flee in terror. Niklas’s soldiers screamed and howled, riding at the attackers with reckless bravado, wild-eyed and unwilling to yield. Seasoned as the black-clad riders were, Niklas’s men had seen enough battle over the last few years to fear little that war had to offer. Once they had the measure of the enemy’s weak point, Niklas’s men exploited their knowledge, giving no quarter. After two bloody candlemarks of heated engagement, the riders drew back, then fled into Meroven territory.
“Let them go!” Niklas shouted. He was bleeding all over from scratches and punctures the birds had inflicted. His horse bore gashes and cuts as well, and he leaned forward to run a comforting hand down his mount’s mane.
“Gather the wounded and the horses and fall back!” he ordered. Niklas gave a tired, bitter smile as he watched his troops go through the drill. Most remained on guard as others dismounted to find their wounded comrades, loot the bodies, and administer a death strike to any enemy soldier unlucky enough to be too badly injured to be captured and interrogated. This wasn’t the stuff of legends. It was grimy, bloody work stinking of offal and piss, and looting the dead, once considered bad form, was now a routine of necessity.
How wealthy we were to leave a good blade on a corpse, or to allow usable gear to go to the grave, Niklas thought, remembering the beginning of the Meroven War, before the Great Fire and the Cataclysm, before the rules of existence changed forever.
Weary and wounded, Niklas’s soldiers retreated to their fortified camp. Fresh soldiers came to attend to the wounded and guard the perimeter, as Ordel and the healers worked their way among the damaged and dying men, determining who to treat and who was already beyond saving.
“Thought you might want this, Captain.” One of Niklas’s men handed off a helmet he had taken from a black rider, before limping off to find a healer. Doesn’t matter what rank Blaine gives me, to the men who followed me home from the war, I’ll always be ‘captain,’ Niklas thought. Proud as he was of the responsibility Blaine had given him, he was proudest of earning the trust of his men as their ‘captain’ when the world around them went up in flames.
Niklas turned the helmet in his hands. It was well made, designed to be functional and to make a terrifying impression. The blacksmith who had crafted this helmet had envisioned an eagle, its features distorted to make it hideous and frightening. First the bird attack, now men in scary animal-skull helmets. There’s got to be a connection, Niklas thought.
“Well, we lived through it.” Ayers limped up to greet him. Dried blood matted his hair where the birds had clawed him, and fierce gashes marred his face, just missing his eyes. Crusted rivulets of blood darkened his eyebrows and streaked his cheeks. Niklas was sure he did not look any better.
“Yeah. Most of us. What in Raka was going on with the birds?” Niklas muttered. “There’s got to be magic involved, and I want to know how to counter it!”
“I already took the liberty of calling the mages to your tent for a meeting,” Ayers said with a tired grin. “They’ll be there in half a candlemark, leaving enough time for us to eat first. I figured it was the best use of time, since the healers will be too busy with serious patients to worry about patching the likes of us up for a while.” He paused. “And I was planning on bringing some whiskey, because I think we could sure use some after today.”
Niklas nodded, certain Ayers could see the exhaustion in his face. “Were we able to take prisoners?”
“Got a couple. These troops looked tougher than some we’ve fought. I’m betting they won’t talk except for the mages or the talishte.”
Niklas gave a shrug. “Fine by me. We have nothing to offer them. We can’t afford to imprison them, and you’re right—whoever the skull helmet folks are, they aren’t going to be scared into changing sides.” He sighed. “I hate this part of war.”
At the moment, he ached from head to toe and he was starving and thirsty. Much as he wanted to sleep, experience had taught him the hard way that he would wake up feeling even worse if he did not see to his needs beforehand. He favored his leg where he had taken a gash, and his arms were tired and shaking from exertion. Finding out that the camp cook had already delivered food
for them when they reached his tent was a bright spot in an otherwise horrific day.
“Here. You look like you need this even more than I do,” Ayers said, pouring a few fingers of whiskey into Niklas’s tankard, and then pouring a measure for himself. They ate in silence, so focused on the food and a chance to recover that they did not slow down for conversation. When they finished their meal and leaned back, Niklas could feel the whiskey taking the edge off his sore muscles and protesting joints.
“General Theilsson?” Dagur, one of the senior battle mages, called out, rapping on the tent post.
“Come in.”
Niklas’s field tent was sparsely furnished, just a brazier, cot, small trunk, and a wide, finished board he could use as a lap desk, as well as a worn rug that covered the ground. Chairs were an unnecessary luxury, as was a table. Niklas and Ayers sat on the floor, motioning for Dagur, Rikard, and their fellow mages to enter.
Dagur was thin and balding. Niklas figured the mage was in his fourth decade. In a worn pair of trews, stained shirt, and a threadbare woolen vest, Dagur looked more like a tavern keeper than a mage. With him were Rikard, Kulp, and Mevvin, younger mages who had distinguished themselves helping with the preparations to work an important ritual at Mirdalur several months earlier.
“Find a seat,” Niklas invited, and Ayers passed the bottle of whiskey to Dagur, who poured some into a tankard and knocked it back without comment, passing the bottle to his fellow mages.
Dagur was first to speak. “We really want to know what you saw out there, because there was some very strange, powerful magic going on. We did the best we could to interrupt it, but we knew we didn’t cut it off entirely.” He paused, taking in Niklas’s bloodied appearance, and glanced over to Ayers, who looked no better. “Apparently, that wasn’t good enough.”
“That depends,” Niklas replied, “on how bad it might have been without your help.”
In response, Dagur passed him the bottle of whiskey. “You might want more of this,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Whoever these new raiders are, they’ve got a very powerful mage among them,” he said, frowning as he eyed their wounds more carefully. “Those aren’t all from sword fighting.”
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