What if we had wasted years of everyone’s time and countless lives in pursuit of a prophecy that had been incorrectly read and a chosen one who did not exist?
Or worse, what if Maria had been meant to bring about our downfall? She walked ahead of me, mercifully oblivious to my thoughts. She herself was truer than any other person I had ever known. But the woman inside her, the wolf howling at the door…she could not be trusted.
And what if she won the battle for Maria’s soul?
“What is it?” Maria noticed that I had stopped. My animal instinct shouted to get away from her.
No. That was madness. She was terrified enough as it was, and what I was thinking couldn’t be true.
“My shoulder’s getting worse,” I said, which wasn’t a complete lie. She made me rest against a tree while she pressed at it, which brought tears to my eyes. I might also have cursed at her. I didn’t mean what I said. Much.
“You’re a great baby sometimes,” she muttered. While she attended me, I gazed into the distance to take my mind off the pain and the prophecy.
I noticed that the twilight was coming on far too soon. True, we’d only had a few hours of daylight this time of year, but I was certain the sun had only just risen. All around us, the forest and hills darkened. Ahead, on the horizon, the darkness seemed to congeal. It wasn’t night. It wasn’t a collection of clouds, or shadows. It was more on the ground, a movement of pure blackness. It…
“An army,” I gasped.
“Not the one we want, either,” Maria muttered.
No, not at all. It was R’hlem’s army, and it was heading straight for us.
At first I thought we might find shelter deeper in the forest, but the swarm could not be outrun. They’d stumble upon us no matter what we did. We needed a way to survive within their ranks.
Maria and I huddled together behind a tree to watch the approaching tide. God, my shoulder blazed. A wish reverberated in my mind over and over, to find shelter, to find shelter, to find shelter.
“By the mother,” Maria whispered. I opened my eyes to discover the lengthening winter shadows crawling toward us like ink over the snow. My entire shoulder went blissfully numb.
We were in darkness now, and I held up a tiny ball of fire to pierce it for Maria. For myself, I could still see perfectly. We were now covered in shadow, invisible to the casual eye. If anyone glanced at us, I was certain we resembled nothing more than the lengthening winter darkness. As much as I hated to use these powers, this was the only way we were getting out alive and uncaught.
We listened as the army enveloped us, the fetid stench of the monsters surrounding us like a wall. Maria and I moved with the creatures, passing through the last of the forest and out into a wide glen. There we stopped. All around us, the creatures dragged wagons or set up tents. The camp swelled, running on either side of us in such a direction that I could not see the end of it.
For the time being, we were stuck.
“What do we do now?” Maria whispered as we walked through the rows of monsters. My shadow continued to cloak us from sight, but I wouldn’t be able to stay like this much longer. Not without the risk of losing myself, like Rook.
“See if we can find a way through,” I replied.
Up ahead, the Familiars were detaching horses from their wagons. It was almost bizarre to see these feral, mindless monsters doing anything as mundane as taking off a harness or brushing down a horse. The Familiars had formed a circle of wagons. We might be safe and hidden from view in the center, and I hurried us toward it.
We passed actual people, not merely the transformed Familiars. These men and women wandered freely through the camp, their clothes patched, their faces dirty. In fact, they appeared quite fanatical. We dodged about them as they began a kind of capering dance in a circle. Joining hands, they chanted to the sky. The women wore their hair long, while the men had collars of bone with iron bells attached to their necks. One of them, a tall, gangly fellow with a shaved head and startling handprints of blood decorating his chest and throat, barked at his group in an unknown tongue. The people knelt at his feet, arms raised to the heavens as they shouted praise in that ancient and terrifying language. I caught the names of the Ancients, and one in particular, R’hlem, was shouted over and over again.
So my father had people worshipping him now. That was bound to please him.
I realized that if Maria and I copied them, we might have a better chance of blending in. I undid my simple chignon, letting my brown hair fall about my face. I shook it up for good measure, then smeared mud across my cheeks.
“Have you gone mad?” Maria asked.
“It’d be so much easier to bear all of this if I had.” I helped her dirty her face—her hair didn’t need the help. Letting the shadow cloak fall away, we moved together toward the wagons. If a Familiar glanced at us, we praised R’hlem, calling his name over and over with our hands to the sky. This appeared to satisfy every monster we met.
I was better at faking the wild prayers than Maria. Then again, deception didn’t come as naturally to her as it did to me.
“See if we can’t find a supply wagon,” I whispered. Even with Maria’s foraging skills, it was clear that we were going to starve if we couldn’t find a full meal.
We approached a circle of wagons, searching for one laden with sacks of grain. Unfortunately, these wagons looked like the type meant to contain wild animals in a traveling circus. Metal cages displayed clusters of moaning, dirty people.
We’d happened upon their prisoners.
Maria and I slipped inside the circle, finding our way to the center. Cages were on every side of us, but we were hidden from any Familiar that might pass by. I peered into one cage after another; the people inside looked wasted and gray. One woman lay on her side, shivering beneath a blanket. The sight was heartrending. I brushed close to the bars of one cage…and felt a hand grab my arm.
“Stay back!” Maria cried. The man released me, and I noted his bright black eyes, his dark skin and graying beard….
Dear God. Mickelmas.
His bottom lip was swollen and his right eye nearly closed from a recent beating. He held a finger to his lips for silence and waved us nearer.
“Of all the places in this whole blasted world, of course I’d run into the pair of you in a death camp.” He said it with a tinge of pride. “You never were one for staying home and doing needlework, pigeon. Though you’d probably live longer if you did. Besides, needlework pays a good wage, and I could use a new handkerchief….”
He was talking feverish nonsense. He cupped a hand around his mouth.
“My companion isn’t well,” he said in a theatrical whisper. I looked inside the cage, taking in the wretched fellow huddled in a corner. His dirty features appeared familiar.
Recognition burst in my mind. The life had drained from his once-lively brown eyes, but I knew him to be Master Agrippa.
I looked at his hands. The stump of the right one—he’d chopped it off to keep me from being taken to God knows where along with him—had been wrapped in linen strips. Someone had cruelly jammed twigs into the stump, the mockery of a replacement hand. Agrippa lay with his head back against the bars, his mouth open.
“Surprised, I take it,” Mickelmas said, grunting as he came closer to the cage. “He’s rather a boring conversationalist. Hasn’t spoken a word these last two weeks. I rather think R’hlem hoped we’d turn on one another. Wasn’t he disappointed?”
Agrippa grumbled, blinking as though awaking from a dream.
“Sir? Do you know me?” I gripped the bars, but Agrippa’s eyes remained glazed. Mickelmas helped prop the man up.
“He’s been dead to the world since his fever.” Mickelmas shook his head. “Get a handful of nonsense once in a while, but that’s all.”
Maria moved closer, touching the bars. She cocked
an eyebrow as she studied Agrippa. “Your old Master,” she said, her voice lifeless. She’d seen Agrippa’s portrait several months earlier. She now knew he was her father.
“Yes,” I said. Then, “Are you all right, Maria?”
She looked hard at the man in the cage. I expected tears, or curses. Perhaps I thought she’d spit upon him. Instead, she shoved away and went to the other side of the circle. She crouched down, arms wrapped about her knees. I could only guess at her thoughts.
“What’ve you been up to since last we met?” Mickelmas sounded like we were old friends having a chat in a tearoom. He leaned against the bars, one arm dangling languidly. “Making stirring speeches on the nature of friendship? Found another boy to moon over? Didn’t you have six different fellows going at one point?”
“Are you quite done?”
“Never, so I’d suggest you broach a new topic.”
“Very well. Sorrow-Fell’s been taken by R’hlem. What do you say to that?”
“Ouch. Does that suffice?”
“There’s more, and worse. I found a stone circle there—”
“Let me guess. The one used by Wild Mordecai and Ralph Strangewayes to pull those beasts in and out of the other world?” he drawled. My gut tightened.
“You knew?” I inspected the cage, trying to figure a way to break it open without drawing too much attention. “Did you tell R’hlem after he captured you?”
“Why, my dear little apprentice, you truly think I would give such an important piece of information to our enemy?” He placed a hand over his heart in mock outrage.
“Are you saying you didn’t?”
“No, I did. Of course I did. Told him whatever he asked. I didn’t relish the thought of walking around without a face, you know. Most uncomfortable.” Fire washed over my body, and it took all my willpower to dash it out. Mickelmas reclined against the bundle of straw on the floor, a finger over his lips. “We don’t want the whole cavalry descending on you, my little bonfire. You’d make a nice trophy.”
“You told R’hlem about the circle, you miserable—”
“Don’t go flinging nasty words about, girl.” Mickelmas crossed his arms. “I told R’hlem that I knew the circle existed, but I didn’t know it resided in Sorrow-Fell. Wonderful bit of irony, that. The Blackwoods were searching for an answer that was right there, practically in their own house.”
“But R’hlem knows what the circle does? How to use it?”
“He captured me at the most opportune moment.” Mickelmas said this to the air, not really to me. He held out his dark hands as if setting the scene. “As if he knew when I’d have the information. R’hlem snatched me just after I’d made the most wonderful progress.”
After London had fallen, Mickelmas had told me he planned to search the country for the way to rid ourselves of the Ancients once and for all. “You went looking for the answer, and you found it?”
“Spent some time reading magical texts at Oxford. The Ancients didn’t bother with burning books, which was so bloody helpful. Oxford houses the greatest selection of Wild Mordecai’s teachings, which is where I learned about that stone circle. Though of course I didn’t know where the circle was—Wild Mordecai wasn’t a man for specifics. Poor, crazy bugger.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “To think, it was with you all along. If only I’d managed to avoid capture. After I left Oxford, I was on my way to find you when—”
I couldn’t quiet my anger. “Why haven’t you escaped from here? You can fold yourself up into the slightest bit of space, so getting through these bars should be nothing at all.”
“Ah. My fabulous magical ability,” Mickelmas said with a mocking flourish of his hand. “These cages are charmed, I’m afraid. Those trapped within find their magical talents utterly bound. R’hlem employs his old magician tricks with such fabulous cunning.”
“You should have let R’hlem kill you,” I snapped.
“You’re very cavalier with other people’s lives, you cheeky thing.” Drawing himself to his feet, he looked down on me. “Also, you seem to think I told R’hlem everything I know. Once he had the basic answer, he thought I’d merely serve as an object for his torturous rage. He never asked for anything more.” Mickelmas smirked and pulled at his beard. “That was always William’s weakness. He’d no love for detail.”
“You’ve other information?” I asked. Maria came over and squeezed my arm so tightly I told her to stop.
“ ‘Lady in the wood.’ ” The words had barely left her mouth when I heard the warm, poisonously honeyed laugh of Willoughby.
“Let go my arm, or I’ll set you on fire,” I warned.
“Not very kind, are you?” she purred, and sauntered past me to the cage. Agrippa continued to stare at the ceiling. Mickelmas, though, watched the girl with a wary expression.
“I have the uncanny feeling we’ve met before,” he said, squatting to peer into Maria’s face. “Got that sensation the first time I met this girl. Tell me. What presence has taken root in this poor child’s mind?”
“Howard, you ought to recognize me.” Willoughby ran a tongue along her teeth. “After all, you’re the one who left me in the meeting place.” Mickelmas looked horrified.
“Mary. Frankly, I never thought I’d meet you again in this life,” he said.
She spit, hitting him right in the face. He calmly wiped the spittle away.
“Thanks to you, I’d barely any life to cling to,” she barked. I hushed her. If any of the monsters or fanatics caught us here now, it would go badly.
“I had to leave. The Order would have found me.” Mickelmas frowned. “I tried to warn you, for God’s sake. Besides, what fugitive in their right mind waits in one place for more than seven hours?”
Now they sounded like a pair of old school chums who’d fallen out. I hushed Willoughby again when she grunted at him.
“Don’t quiet me, traitor’s girl. I’ll have the hounds and beasts upon you,” she snarled.
“Then may I remind you, they’ll only take me hostage, being the traitor’s girl and all,” I snapped. I wasn’t sure how my father would handle seeing me again, but I doubted he’d kill me. “You, on the other hand, will be torn limb from limb.”
“R’hlem wouldn’t,” she said proudly.
“Would you gamble your life on his consistency and compassion?” I asked. To her credit, she didn’t reply. “Now. How do I get you out of here?” I whispered to Mickelmas.
“It might be difficult. Though there is one person you could try.”
A scream sounded in the air above us. Cursing, I dragged Maria, or rather, Willoughby, beneath the wagon to hide with me. I winced as the great flap of wings overhead kicked up snow. From my hiding place, I could see that the fanatics were dragging a line of ten men and two women toward the wagon circle. The people’s hands and feet were chained. Fanatics dipped their fingers into wooden bowls and painted the captives’ foreheads with blood. One of the Familiars, a flayed warrior of R’hlem, signaled overhead.
On-Tez the Vulture Woman descended from the air, her great claws raking the snow as she settled. The Vulture stretched her wings to their full span, the stench of rot and bones emanating from her. She watched the line of prisoners over her hooked nose. Gnashing her sharp black teeth, she hopped back and forth in a manner entirely too birdlike.
“You have a choice,” the Familiar said to the prisoners now on their knees. “Give yourselves to the bloody king’s army, or die.”
The first man shook his head. “Never. Kill me if you will.”
The Familiar did not ask again. He merely unsheathed a sword of ridged, twisting bone and sliced the man’s throat where he knelt. The wide-eyed fellow collapsed into the dirt, bucking as his life bled away.
The Familiar did the same to the next man, until the third, with tears in his eyes, nodded. “I’ll serve the b
loody king.”
“Wise decision.” The Familiar unshackled the man and shoved him forward. On-Tez waddled toward him, clacking her teeth with fiendish excitement. The man screamed as she pinned him to the ground with one of her clawed feet. On-Tez leaned over the man and breathed into his face. Black sparkling mist wafted over him. As the man inhaled it, the flesh on his face bubbled. I bit down on my fist to avoid screaming. His hair dissolved, and when he stood, his nose sharpened like a beak; black feathers sprouted on the crown of his head and along his arms. The new Familiar followed his master, while one of the women clawed at her face in terror. From the way she screamed the man’s name, I got the feeling they were married.
So this was how R’hlem expanded his army, why I’d come across so many ghostly villages in Cornwall or Kent. Why hadn’t I aimed just a little bit higher when I’d stabbed him in his chest? Why had I shown the slightest hint of mercy?
To turn someone into a servant of something so evil was…was…
Master
The thought flicked through my mind for one second and then vanished.
“What is it?” Willoughby asked as I began to cough. It was as if I’d forgotten how to speak. The world around me seemed to dissolve into darkness, except that I wasn’t calling the shadows to me. I felt flame spark in my hand but couldn’t see it. God in heaven, was I going blind? How? Why?
Master
There it was again, that word. God, it made me hungry, that word, an ache in the pit of my stomach. The images of everything ahead of me threaded with fire. The dark itself was light.
“Henrietta.” Maria had returned to herself and shook my shoulder. I was going to rip her bloody throat out if she bothered me, if she took me away from…
Him.
He strode toward the last four prisoners in line. The skinned Familiar bowed to him as he made his way, shadows undulating over his skin like folds of drapery.
Rook. Korozoth. The Shadow and Fog.
My master.
A Sorrow Fierce and Falling (Kingdom on Fire, Book Three) Page 14
