Bloodwalk

by James Davis

  “How are signs of the blush within the city?” Eli asked while working at a loose harness on the saddle.

  “The plague is evident in some, but not so much as the rumors from the north are telling. We do what we can, but a cure is still elusive at best.”

  Eli was quiet for a moment, attempting to choose her words, but then felt little need to as the narrow line of darkness on the horizon rumbled with thunder.

  Well-chosen words will do us no favors now, she thought.

  “There are no rumors from the north, only truths.” Eli stopped and stared blindly at the worn leather of her saddle, remembering. “I chanced upon a merchant caravan just north of Littlewater. It had been through Logfell and Targris and was turned away at the gates of Derlusk.

  “The hired guards spoke to me when I rode near to inquire of their business and wares. They said Logfell was lost, completely overrun with the disease, and that Targris had its fair share of victims as well. Several of their own caravan weren’t feeling well, and they suspected those at Derlusk knew something but would not even open the gates to them.”

  “Turned away at Derlusk? But surely the sages there have some information, some knowledge of a cure?”

  Eli knew the defeated and confused tone in Dreslya’s voice, had known the same when confronted by these horrible truths.

  “The sages have their books and magic, Dres, but the merchant princes hold the gates and the money. They’ll not see their decadence ruined by plague, and I suspect Littlewater will hold much the same opinion—too long have they courted Derlusk’s nobles and favor.”

  Dres was quiet, absorbing the news as Eli thought a moment. Then the hunter leaned forward to whisper in her sister’s ear, “What is happening here? Why have we not heard news from the high oracle?”

  Dres pulled back quickly, her eyes darting in all directions. She shook her head as if to say, Not here, not now.

  Eli’s concern grew at her sister’s strange reaction, though something within her already sensed the nature of her anxiety. After a moment, she nodded and dropped the subject. Dreslya calmed, then turned as the long horns on the walls began to trumpet across the field, announcing the arrival of the lord hunter.

  In older times, the Lord Hunter of the Hidden Circle had been selected from the greatest and most respected warriors—those renowned for prowess on the field of battle and powerful devotion to Savras and his temple at Brookhollow. As the unarmored figure of Lord Hunter Baertah rode through the ranks of the assembled hunters, it was apparent that recent times had seen the rise of politics and finances as the measures of virtue and title.

  Baertah had a slight build, thin and wiry. His hands were well manicured, as was the fashion among the nobility in larger cities. His pale, unblemished face, perfumed with oils, contrasted with his deep black eyes, making them appear larger and giving him a feral look. Across his back was slung a bow and a quiver of arrows. The blade he carried was a thin rapier, an impractical weapon for a hunter, but popular in Derlusk and Littlewater.

  Dreslya nodded to Elisandrya and walked to meet Baertah at the gates. Eli continued to needlessly check her packs and saddle harness. She felt no desire to watch Baertah ride by. She’d been at odds with the lord hunter on more than one occasion and had no need to rekindle old conflicts. She did not envy her sister’s duty. As the acting Sibylite of the temple, Dreslya would accompany the lord hunter in the procession through the streets.

  Elisandrya waited for the horns to be sounded again, the signal for the gates to be opened so the hunters could enter the city. She mounted Morningstar, her loyal steed named for the bright patch of white on his otherwise pitch black forehead. Reigning him in line with the other hunters, they approached the gates to make their way slowly to the temple.

  Her eyes focused on the looming white walls of the temple, the center of Savras’s faith in Shandolphyn’s Reach, and she hoped to end this ordeal as quickly as possible. Curiosity, though, made her anxious to hear the high oracle’s message. Rumors held that Sameska would be stepping down and naming a new high oracle due to her long absence of true prophecy and vision. Eli, however, had no such illusions about the woman. She knew Sameska too well to expect anything but total piety and barely concealed arrogance.

  Eli’s patience and nerves were already on edge here, in such close proximity to the people and places of her worst memories. She had more than one reason for dreading this return—the primary one waiting at the end of the hunters’ parade to the temple.

  Dres must have the resolve and fortitude of a hundred hunters, she thought, to face these things on a daily basis. But then, Dres never really found out what had happened. Shouldn’t find out.

  Eli lowered her head and rode on. Taking a deep breath, she banished her demons and tried to calm herself amid the confining walls and rigid lanes of the populated city. She felt a mild claustrophobia away from the open grassland of the Reach. The eyes of Brookhollow’s citizens seemed to bore into her as they stood alongside the route of the hunters, silently casting fethra petals in front of the horses’ hooves.

  The scattering of the flowers before the host of hunters was a sign of dark times, as if saying the petals were useless and the faithful sought the blessings of their leaders. Eli noted that the onlookers threw down the petals, but each home kept a bundle of the dried leaves by the door in preparation for the growing sickness and the debilitating fever that was no doubt coming.

  The sky was an impenetrable pitch beneath the singular tower of Jhareat. Though small globes of bluish light floated in a wide circle around its base, Khaemil did not need them. His eyes were well suited to the absolute darkness in the ruins and forest beyond. He flexed his fingers, still numb from Morgynn’s interrogation, and approached one of Talmen’s wizard-priests from behind.

  The mumbling man, lost in the trance of spell and prayer, paid no attention to the canomorph. The priest’s face was hidden behind a mask resembling a bone devil. The skeletal image was pressed close to the tower wall as the priest carefully and feverishly inscribed the runes that tied the storms to the tower in knots of magic. The metal stylus he used dripped with an acidic ink that burned the symbols into the aged stonework. The scratching sounds it made, in tandem with others who worked alongside him, caused Khaemil to imagine the knuckles of the long dead clawing at tomb walls for escape.

  He sighed, memories of Thay and its skilled necromancers bringing a horrid smile to his lips. He looked to the forest, feeling the fevered stares from between the trees, and thought wryly, We’ve come a long way from dancing bones and playing in the dirt.

  “Did you tell her? Does Morgynn know we demand the blood of the Hoarite?” Talmen appeared at Khaemil’s side, following the canomorph’s gaze into the forest’s depths.

  “Lady Morgynn has more things on her mind than petty vengeance, Malefactor Talmen. Especially concerning the death of Mahgra.” Khaemil did not favor Talmen by reacting to his sudden and silent approach with anything less than nonchalance.

  “Our Order is weakened and Morgynn does not react?” The Gargauthan was angry. There were few friends among those of his faith, and the death of a powerful ally was not to be taken lightly.

  “Mahgra was a fool, Talmen. He had a pack of gnoll warriors and his own formidable magic. A single man tore apart Mahgra’s foothold in Targris. Is this the ally you wish vengeance for? I had no idea loyalty was so strong among your kind. It borders on—compassion.” Khaemil said the last to needle Talmen’s growing suspicion into a more logical frame of thought. What he said of Mahgra was true, but Talmen need not know the ghostwalker was drawn into the matter purposely.

  “It is not loyalty I speak of, but caution. One man did cause Mahgra’s fall and the loss of Targris. Imagine what else such a man might do.”

  “Hoarites are not known for their heroics. They kill when they are called and move on. He is likely miles away by now.”

  “We don’t know for sure, do we? We have no idea who he is, and we are unable to sc
ry upon him if he walks the shadow road. How can we be sure the oracles have not seen him—and Targris, or even Logfell?”

  “You worry too much, Talmen.”

  “Do I? I’ve watched too many of our plans in the past become foiled by overconfidence and missed details. Why should this be any different?”

  “Because this time, we do not hide.”

  Talmen looked around in confusion at the ruins and the forest, and huffed an incredulous reply. “I’d say we are smack in the middle of hidden, canomorph.”

  Khaemil smiled, enjoying Talmen’s ignorance and paranoia.

  “The oracles, Talmen.”

  “What of them? Why are you smiling?”

  Khaemil enjoyed baiting Talmen with mysteries. The malefactor was nervous and easily pushed to anger.

  “They know already. That we are here, and that we are coming.”

  The Gargauthan’s eyes grew wide behind his mask. He was speechless at this news.

  Khaemil chuckled deeply as thunder boomed overhead.

  “All of our work has been for naught! We might have just as easily charged in as barbarians from the north! What good has creeping into these ruins done?”

  Khaemil watched him curiously, wondering how the Gargauthan had managed to survive among the devil-god’s faithful for so long. He looked ridiculous pacing about in his hideous mask, gesticulating wildly as he mumbled to himself.

  “This is a dangerous game that Morgynn plays at. The Savrathans may appear complacent, but they are visionaries! Seers! We cannot surprise them or catch them off guard. They will anticipate our moves!” Talmen pointed at Khaemil and then to the east, roughly in the direction of Brookhollow and the oracles’ temple. He yelled above the noise of the chanting wizard-priests and the grumbling storms they gathered.

  “Precisely, fool,” Khaemil answered calmly, but irritation in his voice let slip the hidden growl of his bestial nature.

  Before Talmen could respond to the insult, both of them became aware of a vibration on the air, a voice that rose above everything else. Looking up at the tower, flashes of light could be seen in Morgynn’s window as her voice navigated the winding corridors of magic, becoming a slow shriek of mind-numbing power. Red mist spilled from the window like a living waterfall, taking flight and dancing in a crimson ribbon around the top of the tower. Its sinuous movement matched the singsong quality of Morgynn’s spell, and the cloud began to ripple with its own lightning.

  Talmen stood in thrall to his lady’s voice. Khaemil admired the calming effect Morgynn had on the malefactor, and waited for Talmen’s attention to return to the present matter. Morgynn’s voice faded away, but the red mist remained, settling in a halo around her room.

  Without looking away, Talmen finally responded. “We are all fools, are we not? We follow her where she leads, and only Gargauth knows where we’ll end up.” He shook his head and turned to Khaemil. “Why, then? Why do we stand here in plain view of our enemies? What does she expect they’ll do?”

  Khaemil returned his gaze to the forest, spotting the skinned carcass of an untainted fawn hanging from a branch at its edge, an old tradition when fiendish parties desired parley with potential allies. He raised a hairless brow at the sight and turned toward it, then stopped. He looked at Talmen over his shoulder. “Nothing. She expects they’ll do nothing at all.”

  The majority of the assembled hunters packed into the sanctuary and surrounding halls of the inner temple, awaiting the Rite of the Circle and the appearance of High Oracle Sameska. Dreslya stood at the front of the central altar, with Lord Hunter Baertah taking the foremost position in the crowd before her. The lesser oracles were arranged in a semicircle around Dreslya, their heads bowed as they prepared to channel the opening spells of the rite through the acting Sibylite.

  Elisandrya knew Dreslya did not particularly like the title of Sibylite or the amount of attention it drew to her as the primary figure in the ceremony until Sameska’s arrival. Dres had always been shy and reclusive, but tradition demanded this role of the most senior of the lesser oracles. Other churches devoted to the All-Seeing One referred to all those beneath the high oracle as Prophets and Sibylites, but the Hidden Circle considered the terms archaic. The use of the title of Sibylite was used only when tradition demanded it.

  Eli watched from the upper balcony, proud of her sister, but still fidgety and eager to leave the crowded sanctuary and all that it represented. It was within these halls that, as a child, she’d been the first to hear of their parents’ death. Under the care of the oracles, Eli and Dres had often studied the tapestries and frescoes of the main sanctuary, lost in the stories they told. Elisandrya had been alone that day when Sameska came to her with the news. As tragic as the day had been, it paled in comparison to the revelations of the following day. Eli had endeavored to become a hunter soon after, and vowed to return only upon Sameska’s death.

  It was a coward’s oath, she thought.

  “Sevrak deslotas, emuarte.”

  Dres’s voice carried through the circular chamber, echoing off the walls and growing louder as it lingered near the high dome above and returned in an amplified wave. Eli shook her head to clear it of memories and focus on the ceremony.

  A soft glow formed around Dreslya’s eyes and drifted to the oracles on either side of her, until all the oracles stared at the crowd through a white haze of light. Eli envied them at times. They all worshiped Savras in their own ways, but only the oracles might hear his voice, perhaps see through his eyes. The best a hunter could expect were brief and flashing insights, the shadow of a vision—vague hints to what might occur in the immediate future.

  “Peshtak revallas, emuarte.”

  This the oracles said in unison, though Dreslya’s voice, as the Sibylite, led the harmony of the rite’s prayers, woven in a tapestry of supplication and old magic. The walls began to vibrate with the sound. Tiny lines appeared like cracks at first, unfolding into the wards and runes of spells hidden in the white stone and marble floors. The entire sanctuary became a shining scroll of stone covered in writings of power.

  In dangerous times, these arcane and divine defenses fortified the temple and protected the oracles while enhancing their power. Only once in the history of Brookhollow had they been used, and that was long ago, shortly after the temple’s completion, when life near the Qurth was more tumultuous. The forest had been calmer since those days, having tested the will of the border towns and finding them formidable. The hunters remained on guard though, patrolling the Qurth’s edges and battling those tainted beasts that crawled from its entwined roots.

  “Savras. All-Seeing One. As an infant, I opened my eyes and was blind until you showed me what to see. Let us now hear the voice of your sight.”

  Dreslya turned and lit a single candle at the foot of the altar. She faced Baertah again and sat, joining the other oracles in their semicircle. A veiled alcove behind the altar opened and revealed Sameska, standing proudly with her arms wide. The high oracle stepped forward, allowing all to witness her in her finest robes before speaking. She nodded to the lord hunter and cast her eyes across the gathered warriors and the oracles.

  Eli was silent, clenching the rail in front of her and fighting to maintain her composure. The image of Sameska’s face, looking down that hawkish nose at the little girl caught in the sanctuary after dark, was fresh in her mind. She looked away, grinding her teeth and attempting to quell her nearly unstrung emotions.

  Movement caught her eye. The oracle at the far left of the circle kept rubbing her face with a stained sleeve. Her nose had begun to bleed and the sleeve bore a patch of reddish brown where her attempts to stanch the flow were evident. The glow around them all flickered slightly. The thunder outside, inaudible until now, crept ominously closer.

  “Hear me!”

  The high oracle’s voice was shrill, but the gathered hunters answered, “We hear.”

  Sameska took a breath to continue, but it caught in her throat. Her voice froze and her face red
dened as she struggled to exhale. The designs of magic on the walls and floors flared brightly, like a flash of lightning, then went out, leaving only the glow of the oracles’ eyes and the single candle burning at the foot of the altar.

  Everyone gasped. Several onlookers stepped forward to assist the high oracle. She waved them back breathlessly, though her arms shook and her legs wavered unsteadily as if she might fall. She grabbed the holy symbol around her neck, a talisman passed down from one high oracle to the next, and doubled over in obvious pain.

  Dreslya, eyes closed, maintained her silent chant. Sameska was at the mercy of Savras’s power, for good or ill. Elisandrya stood transfixed on the scene, unnerved by the sudden darkness and alert for signs of danger, though her stare never left the high oracle’s trembling form.

  When Sameska finally lifted her head to face the hushed assembly, her expression seemed detached, as if she were unaware of her surroundings. When she spoke, the voice that issued from her mouth was hollow and brushed across the skin like a swarm of gnats in the heat of summer.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hear me now.”

  Sameska’s voice buzzed through the crowd, familiar and distant, bereft of ceremony, gripping the nerves in a vice of rapt attention. None could look away, touched in that primal place between reason and wild alarm. All the oracles except one, a young woman on Sameska’s right, had passed out. Whether from fear or exhaustion, none could say. The young woman’s neck had broken out in a dark rash and her nose continued to spill crimson drops to the floor.

  On her hands and knees, the high oracle raised her nearly vacant eyes, peering at her stunned followers through loosened tangles of gray hair.

  “An enemy sits at your doorstep, scratching at the edges of your security. I have been shown things. Things that were, things that are, and things to come. We have been brought plague and storms, received silence to our pleading prayers, but Savras speaks now.