“Markal, we discussed this already. There’s no way through without alerting the wights, so we may as well do it intentionally. They’re faster than us, and there are too many to fight. Once we triggered their release, we’d never reach the bridge, let alone the gardens. And even if we could, do you want thousands of wights throwing themselves against the garden walls? You must call up the Dark Gatherer and let him do the work for us.”
The air was growing brighter, and the scent of wights hung in the air, mingling with swamp gasses until it coated the back of Markal’s throat with a bitter film. He was anxious to do what they’d set out to accomplish, but at the same time not so anxious as to see the master run off while he stayed waiting for wights to boil out of the swampland surrounding the road. Which wasn’t even the most frightening part of the master’s plan.
“And I’m supposed to call the Harvester to me? Intentionally?”
“Yes.”
“Master, this is . . . you understand why I’m reluctant.”
“Your soul is contained within a living body. The Harvester gathers the souls of the dead.”
“He gathers all souls,” Markal corrected. “He only hunts the dead, but if the living are foolish enough to stand around watching, their souls will be stuffed into his bag all the same.”
“So don’t stand there watching,” Memnet said, his tone casual, as if this were the easiest part of the entire plan. “As soon as you hear the horn or the baying hounds, run for your life.”
“So, stand motionless while you free the wights, then call the Harvester, then flee in terror, avoiding both wights and Harvester, while I look for the rest of you on the road. And I imagine you’ll be running as hard as you can, not waiting for me or anything.”
“More or less.”
“How hard could it be?” Markal said.
Memnet’s tone turned serious. “I won’t claim the plan is without hazards. But we must reach the gardens safely, we must save what’s left of the library. Every one of us will face dangers.”
“What were you telling Chantmer earlier, when the two of you left the road?”
“Chantmer has his role. You have yours.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“What I told Chantmer was for his ears only.” Memnet’s tone lightened again. “There’s a reason you call me Master. I’m not all-knowing, but yes, sometimes I need to make the decisions.”
“Fine, then what is my role? What am I doing here, just being an expendable junior wizard?”
“There’s nothing junior about you, Markal. Someday I’ll be gone—that could even be today, if this goes poorly—and someone else will take my place. If things go poorly enough, the survivors might have to reformulate the entire order. We might all be dead except for one or two, and then what? Let all this magic vanish from the earth? When that day comes, I expect that you will be my successor.”
“Me? With my doubts and fears, me?”
“Maybe Nathaliey. But probably you.”
“So you die, or you wander off like the old hermit, never to be seen again, and I’ll declare myself the master of the order? Of course Chantmer would accept me, right? And Narud wouldn’t wander after you into the mountains or the wastelands?”
“I don’t know, Markal. I can’t see the future. If I could, I wouldn’t have let a marauder cut off my head. I wouldn’t have let Syrmarria and half the library burn. I can’t even see if the two of us will be alive twenty minutes from now.”
This was perhaps the most unsettling conversation that Markal had ever had. They were in the marshlands where the Nye spilled its banks, and the pools and ponds surrounding them were filled with the restless souls of the dead. Recently bound wights, their minds slipped into insanity, an army of unwilling, un-dead slaves ready to destroy the magical order that had once protected them.
“Are you ready?” Memnet repeated.
“No, not really.”
“Neither am I. But we could sit here chatting all night and in the morning we’d be no closer to home. Meanwhile, the enemy’s hunt continues.” Memnet glanced skyward. “Anyway, the moon is in the right position. Time to move.” He put a hand on Markal’s shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll see each other shortly, but in case we don’t, may the Brothers guide your path.”
“Wait, what spell am I supposed to cast?”
“You don’t know?”
“How would I know? I’m not in the habit of calling the Harvester.”
Memnet pointed skyward. “Hunt by the light of the moon, Markal.”
Markal shook his head, frustrated. “I still don’t understand.”
“You will. It will come to you soon enough. You have the knowledge, Markal, all you need is a little initiative. Oh, and faith. Doubt saps your strength at every turn. But it won’t hurt you tonight, I’m sure of that.”
#
Markal watched the master depart, and shook his head again. What was that little comment about doubt? What kind of timing was that? Remind him of his fears and doubts just at the moment when he needed to call the Harvester? He’d been feeling good about his power, or, at least, more worried about wights rising from the ponds, and then casting a spell and escaping before either they or the Dark Gatherer destroyed him. He certainly hadn’t been worrying about wasting his magic through lack of confidence.
Now he was. It was gnawing at him.
And he still hadn’t figured out what the master was talking about. Hunt by the light of the moon? Why hadn’t Memnet just come out and said what he meant?
“Really? Now?” he murmured. “Now is when I need a blasted lesson?”
Markal stood alone in a swamp, surrounded by wights, with nothing less than the fate of half the order and a good portion of the library resting on his shoulders, and Memnet refused to come right out and say what was expected.
He was still puzzling this out when something hummed in the air to the west. A familiar magical scent drifted through the air. Memnet the Great. A light breeze rolled across the marshland, followed by a cleaner, drier breeze.
The water vibrated near Markal’s feet, and bubbles rose to the surface like from a pot on the cusp of boiling. A glowing hand broke the surface, nothing but bones, and then there were dozens of arms and heads, wights climbing out of the water and dragging themselves onto the shore. There were scores of glowing wights—men, women, children. Soldiers and merchants and slaves and ministers.
Some were whole, and could have been living, if not for the ethereal glow and the haunted expressions of madness. These, he supposed, had suffocated in the smoke or died pinned beneath collapsing buildings. Others carried dangling arms or dragged crippled legs. Heads caved in, lower jaws torn away. But many others, perhaps most, carried the horrible evidence of the conflagration that had burned Syrmarria to the ground. Their bodies were half skeleton, half char. Muscles fell away like meat roasting off the bone.
Markal stood frozen in fear as the swampland glowed brighter and brighter. Thousands upon thousands, rising all around him. Soon, the moon itself was a faded white glow in the sky against their gleam.
At first, the wights didn’t seem to know what to do, but milled about, groaning in pain and fear. Their bonds had been broken, but they hadn’t discovered Markal’s hidden presence. The wight of an old woman approached, her face melted like dripping wax, and she threw back her head and sniffed at the sky. She let out a long, wailing moan.
The moan spread through the wights, and soon, a vast tide of groans and cries wafted through the air, making Markal’s hair stand on end and his heart pound with terror. The old woman turned toward him, and something penetrated the madness as she seemed to see him for the first time.
The light of the moon. Of course.
The dark wizard had his wights hiding in the marshes. In the darkness, beneath the water, with some of them submerged in the inky-black pools. Because binding them to his service was one problem, but Toth also needed to hide them from the Harvester and his hounds.
They were out of the water now, and would eventually draw that hunter of souls. But Markal could speed that up.
He spoke words in the old tongue: “Illuminate my foes. Show their hidden paths.”
The moonlight seemed to gather and focus its strength as if under the hood of a vast celestial lamp. It cast the rushes and sedges into sharp relief and made each and every wight glow until it almost seemed like daylight across the marshes.
The wights flinched and were already falling back when a horn sounded from the north, along the borderland between marsh and forest. The ghostly wailing turned into a shriek so loud and piercing as it was taken up by thousands of wights that Markal clamped his hands over his ears in pain.
The horn sounded again, and this time was followed by the baying of distant hounds. With that, the wights fled, great masses of them that brushed past him with a debilitating chill. Several charged straight at him, not seeming to notice his presence, but in position to run him down all the same, and he had no choice but to flee ahead of them. Another wight touched his hand, and he staggered to his knees, his breath dying in his throat. He got to his feet and somehow managed to duck aside before more wights knocked him down. If one of them wrapped its bony fingers around his throat, he would die.
The wights suddenly scattered in front of him. A dark figure loomed, two heads taller than Markal. A skull mask covered his face, with giant antlers sweeping out on either side. He wore a black robe that billowed under some unfelt breeze, and carried a massive two-handed scythe. No, not a scythe, but a strange, hooking sword. Or was it a spear? But then it appeared to be a scythe again, shifting before Markal’s eyes.
He was face-to-face with the Harvester, the Dark Gatherer himself. His eyes glowed like burning embers, and the air was so chill that a glowing, shimmering frost formed across the clumps of grass and rimed the standing water with ice that crackled as it spread and thickened.
The Harvester swept his scythe side to side, and dozens of wights fell into it. They withered under the blade, and he scooped them up in massive handfuls and stuffed them into a giant squirming bag at his belt.
Wights seemed drawn toward the scythe, even as they tried to flee. Others, farther away, broke loose and ran in mindless terror, and Markal followed, no longer even noticing when one of them brushed him. His only thought was to get away from the one hunting them all. The Harvester seemed to be at every turn, appearing and vanishing and sweeping that long, terrible tool. His bag grew and grew with the souls he stuffed inside, yet at the same time contained them all, and with room for more.
Finally, Markal reached open ground, and he staggered, relieved, onto the road. Wights came crawling, stumbling, and squirming up after him. Some fled east, others west, toward the gardens, and Markal ran in this direction. He sensed the master ahead of him, and another trail, too, that could only be Chantmer and the archivists, driving the poor, terrified horse with its cart toward the bridge and safety.
Just when he thought he would escape, several giant hounds the size of lions leaped onto the road on either side of him, growling and snapping. They had no fur, but were all leathery flesh and muscle. Their eyes glowed, and steaming drool fell from snarling jaws.
The wights retreated from the hounds and swept Markal with them. The dogs seized wights in their jaws and tore them apart while driving the rest backward. They cast their writhing victims to the ground, and the Harvester appeared once more, grabbing and stuffing with terrible speed, before lashing out with what changed from a scythe into a whip. It coiled around multiple wights with every strike and dragged them into the bag.
There seemed no way to escape. There were dogs on the road toward the bridge, dogs chasing wights out of the swamp, and the Harvester facing him, sweeping about him with his tool, lashing and cutting. Taking his harvest of souls and putting them into the bag. And Markal was pushed along with the wights toward him.
The Harvester turned his horned head toward Markal, eyes glowing more fiercely than ever, and he said in a deep, bone-chilling whisper, “I feel your soul, mortal. It wishes to come to me.”
The wights suddenly stopped screaming, and everything looked different. It seemed to be daylight. No longer were the wights a deformed, burning, maimed mass of dead, but Markal could see them as they’d been before death. They were men and women dressed as Aristonians, Veyrians, Marrabatti. Soldiers and children and merchants in their fine clothing. Their faces were bright and their eyes shining, and far from trying to escape, they were running toward the figure standing on the road, who was a being of pure light. The dead threw out their arms to embrace the light, weeping in relief when it touched them. They dissolved into it, and the light grew brighter.
Markal looked at his hand to see double. He felt as though he were lifting above his body, his soul pulling and stretching and trying to break free from the flesh. Trying, in fact, to join the mass of people hurrying toward the being of light, eager to be taken in its embrace.
“No,” he said. “No!”
It took terrific effort to look away. When he did, he was back on the road, and it was night. The moon was overhead, dimmer to his sight than it had been, and the dark figure in robes worked the scythe, dogs driving the terrified wights toward him as they attempted to flee.
“Go,” the Harvester said. This time, the voice seemed to be in his head. “Fly from this place, or this night I will gather your soul.”
Markal found his strength, turned, and ran. The dogs snarled and snapped as he passed, but none chased him.
He staggered twice, bumping into wights being drawn inexorably to the Harvester, but regained his feet each time. Moments later, he came crashing into the back of the cart, not seeing it until he was already upon it. The cart rattled up the road, with the others running alongside it. Erasmus spotted him first, and cried out to the others. Markal’s heart gradually slowed its frantic beat, and he took deep breaths as he fell in beside them. The cries and horns and baying hounds were far behind them now. He had escaped; he was safe.
Memnet dropped back from the front. “You learned something tonight about the human soul.”
Markal nodded, still out of breath.
“And what did you learn?” Memnet pressed.
“Not only human souls.” Markal paused to catch his breath. “Of all souls, right? Animals, too.”
“Yes, we are all made of the same substance. And the Harvester. He is no more to be feared than his brothers.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. I was terrified.”
“So was I. But now you know that you shouldn’t be.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“No,” Memnet said. “It isn’t, is it?”
After that, it was all silent travel, with the land drying as the Nye took once more to its banks, and the road emerged onto hard ground. Finally, with relief, Markal spotted the stone bridge over Blossom Creek. When they reached the crest of the bridge, he hesitated. It was here, not so many months ago, that he’d stood with Bronwyn as another force of wights poured down the road, chasing Nathaliey, Chantmer, and Narud.
The stone bridge bristled with new runes and wards, having been the focal point of much of the order’s efforts to rebuild their defenses since the previous battle. Today, the bridge was dormant, its magical power asleep. The meadows on the east side of the creek remained dark and peaceful, with only the distant glow reminding Markal of the horror he’d so narrowly escaped.
The cart was already rolling down the far side of the bridge in the final approach to the gardens, and he hurried to catch up. The books were safe, the companions who’d escaped from the burning city safe, too. But all too soon, he knew, the enemy would begin the final assault on their sanctuary and home.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In the first several days after seizing the last of the castles through the mountains, Nathaliey thought Wolfram’s army would batter their way through to Aristonia without a serious battle. A small force of marauders had escaped, led by Hamid with
the red sword, but they hadn’t rallied the Veyrian troops to halt the Eriscoban advance so much as thrown up forces piecemeal to shield their escape. The Blackshields, only a hundred strong, smashed a small army of three hundred footmen in the foothills and wiped out several hundred more the next day with a combination of ground charges and swooping attacks from griffin riders.
They captured a wagon train of supplies and seized one of Toth’s pashas before he could take refuge in one of the new fortresses on the Tothian Way. Baron Knightsbridge brought forward the main Eriscoban army to consolidate Wolfram’s gains.
But then they approached the western border of Aristonia and stalled. Here Hamid had set up an armed encampment centered at a watchtower. The Veyrians resisted a swift attack, killed several griffin riders and nearly a dozen paladins, and forced a delay. When a hard-marching force of Eriscobans came up the next day with five hundred men, Wolfram tried again. This time Nathaliey set fire to the enemy palisades and called up a dust storm to disguise a flanking attack from the south. Two dark acolytes fought back with sorcery, and killed her dust storm before Wolfram’s men could take advantage of the diversion. More hard fighting forced Wolfram to withdraw.
He ordered a retreat to the village of Tressily, where the bulk of the Eriscoban army was gathering for another push. Yuli and her griffin riders were getting restless, ready to return to their mountain strongholds, but they’d been flying aerial scouting missions, so high in the clouds that the enemy couldn’t touch them with arrows or sorcery. Yuli reported a hostile army on the road ahead, blocking the way and growing larger hour by hour.
An even larger army—its numbers “uncountable,” as Yuli put it—marched through the heart of Aristonia. Toward what, she couldn’t tell. Seemed that they were trying to encircle woods, sheep pastures, and abandoned wheat fields.
Nathaliey told Yuli to describe the topography of the surrounding land. Heavy forest to the north, bisected by the new highway. A creek flowing toward Aristonia’s main river, crossed by a stone bridge. Yuli was describing the terrain around Memnet’s gardens. Toth was beginning his final assault.
The Emerald Crown (The Red Sword Trilogy Book 3) Page 20
