Path of Bones

by Steven Montano

  The night was busy with voices and camel snorts. He heard Den’nari guards noisily gamble in one of the larger tents, and the One Goddess’s church bells sounded deep in the city, the penitent reminder for all to pray before their bedtimes. The Den’nari worshipped their own version of Corvinia and paid homage to her in their own way, but while Urag Kesh purported to be a place of open-minded acceptance to all religious beliefs it was still controlled by the One Goddess’s Jlantrian church. Many chose to camp outside the city rather than come into close proximity with the worshipers of a faith they held quarrel with, even though they found themselves drawn to Urag Kesh by political and economic necessity.

  Jar’rod closed his eyes and breathed deep. Swirls of sweet narcotics – Moon Powder and Spirit Dust and other aids to achieving spiritual and religious clarity – hung heavy in the air. The inside of his tent was bare except for a simple rug and his pack. Broken moonlight streamed through the open tent flap. He quickly and quietly gathered his belongings, donned a loose purple tunic and sandals and stepped into the camp.

  Argus Saam’siir waited outside. The Veilwarden was young and inexperienced but also powerful and loyal, and while Jar’rod had little concern for the man’s political alliances he’d been very intrigued by what Argus and Gess had offered: a chance to hunt a Bloodspeaker who also had experience with dae’vone, even if she seldom practiced and likely understood little of her own potential. Jar’rod had never encountered a Bloodspeaker who shared his talents, and in exchange for providing his training and experience to aid in her capture he’d have the chance to study her up close.

  He’d sacrificed so much it seemed a shame not to jump at such an opportunity. There was no telling what he might learn.

  Twenty-Four

  Razel took a sip of plum-colored wine. The barkeep had been surprised when she’d ordered the vintage by both name and year; clearly he wasn’t used to anyone drinking anything more exotic than beer or ale, and he’d actually had to go search through his cellars to see if he had her drink. Razel wasn’t worried – she’d already used the Veil to make sure the wine was on the premises before she’d even sat down. The taste was fruity and delicate, but not as strong to her as it used to be.

  That’s one thing I miss. The more years I spend Touching the Veil, the less fun I have.

  It was a common problem – prolonged exposure to magical energies was known to dull the senses in some people, and no amount of Touching the Veil could repair the problem. She remembered old Torryk Blackwater, a Veilwarden of House Red, whose sense of touch had grown so numb he could walk over hot coals without feeling it, and there were plenty of tales about older mages whose sight or hearing had started to go well before they should have. For Razel, her sense of taste was slowly eroding, and before long she knew she wouldn’t even be able to enjoy her food anymore.

  She sat at a table in the corner, sipping her wine and watching a man and woman. To even call them “man” and “woman” was generous, for they were young, very young, and Razel could only guess that the people of Savon Karesh didn’t care if children came to drink with the soldiers and street criminals. It was hard to believe the city had once been considered the cultural center of the Empire – now, with its poorly maintained roads and crumbling marble structures, one could almost believe the Rift War had ended thirty days ago rather than thirty years.

  The boy was sixteen if he was a day, and the girl even younger, but Razel had to admit that as she grew older it became more and more difficult for her to guess the age of anyone younger than herself. Sometimes at thirty-six years she felt like an old crone, because nearly everyone in the oddly named Crimson Dawn Inn looked far too young to be there.

  Banners, old weapons and armor lined the dark wooden walls. The tables and chairs were haphazardly arranged, the bar was littered with mugs and cups, and peanut shells lay scattered underfoot like casualties. The air was thick with alcohol and loud because of the mixed crowd of laborers, soldiers, street merchants and traveling minstrels. Razel saw wanderers and tinkerers, sellswords and Hill People. Most every customer in the place was male, and they all seemed to be experts at drinking, boasting and ogling anything with breasts.

  Razel held the girl’s inner thoughts at the edge of her mind, and learned that she’d come to the Crimson Dawn to get away from her father, a pious man who avoided drink but who still beat her whenever he had the chance because there was sin in the world, and women were weak. Since they had no family in the city she figured she’d go to the one place he’d never dare think to look for her, a den befouled by heathens and alcohol.

  The boy, too, felt out of place, as he’d only been a mercenary soldier for a short time. His outfit The Marauders had just taken a job to drive Tuscar raiders back into the Heartfang Wastes, and he wasn’t at all sure that sounded like a good idea. He’d been with a girl once before – a whore, at the behest of his mercenary captain – but what he felt when he looked at the pious man’s daughter went beyond normal longing and lust, and he wasn’t sure what to do about that.

  They were a perfect match, and for a moment Razel felt utterly ridiculous, like some fairy godmother in one of the fluff-headed stories her mother used to read to her as a child, but the cynic in her decided she needed to do something altruistic every once in a while just to make up for all of her bitterness. She cupped a hand under her table. The cold and ghastly touch of the Veil shocked her skin, but she held onto it. Razel breathed tight and steady, matching the rhythm of her heartbeat to those of the young couple. The room pulsed and distanced as she let the Veil flow away from her, and gelid fires burned in her hand as she bound the two lovers-to-be in an emotional and mental knot.

  She released once it was done, sweaty and dizzy, feeling almost like she’d experienced some sexual climax. At that point she lost her connection to them, but she smiled to herself as she watched them clench hands and gaze into each other’s eyes. She had no idea how the rest of their story would play out, or even if it would play out, but her instincts told her she’d done the right thing.

  “Hello, beautiful.” He popped out of nowhere, a tall man in a loose black shirt and tightly cut breeches, with a golden clasp on his belt and boots made of some wild animal hide. He watched Razel hungrily, and though his presence oozed sleazy charm he wasn’t nearly as handsome as he seemed to think he was.

  “What do you want?” she said curtly.

  “You need company,” he said.

  Razel had dressed modestly, in a dark blue dress with high boots and a thick black cloak; very little of her body was visible, though her face and hands were smooth and pale and it was hard to conceal her voluptuous shape. Her thick blonde hair hung loose about her shoulders, and her lips and nails were blood red. She thought she’d dressed positively chaste compared to what the whores in the Crimson Dawn wore – their bodices were cut so low you could practically throw a cup of ale into their cleavage – but her mother had always told her she was an attractive young lady, and that she’d grow to be an even more attractive woman. So far her mother had proved right, and it was damn irritating.

  “I’m waiting for someone,” she said with a cruel smile.

  “I know,” the man said, and he swung a chair around and seated himself, leaned in close and looked her in the eye. “Here I am.”

  Razel licked her lips, leaned in so their mouths were nearly touching, and gently ran a fingernail along the back of his hand.

  “Leave me alone,” she said. The Veil flowed through her finger, a dull flash of purple light which sent a jolt of numbing energy straight to the man’s brain. He passed out cold, and his head thumped down on the table.

  “Not very subtle, are you?” a familiar voice said. She slowly turned around and looked at him.

  “Argus Saam’siir,” she smiled. He looked delicious, dressed all in black – that seemed to be his choice of color when he was trying to make an impression – and even though it had been less than a year since she’d seen him he somehow seemed taller, mor
e imposing. More a man grown. “Sit,” she said.

  He did, though reluctantly. Argus wasn’t one to chide her about a lack of subtlety – he eyed her with the same hunger he always had, an almost unbridled lust he did his best to contain. His internal struggle never failed to arouse her. He was a good soul, and he’d been a kind and gentle lover.

  “Still playing with people’s lives?” he asked with a nod towards the young couple, who talked and laughed and held hands, oblivious to the drunken japes of the lad’s mercenary brothers.

  “Only when I can get away with it,” she said with a smile.

  Argus looked at the man she’d just rendered unconscious.

  “You didn’t kill him, did you?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” she said. “I’m a good girl, Argus.”

  “I know you better than that, Razel.”

  She flashed him a wicked smile. It was a shame nothing would come of their flirting.

  That time is passed, she told herself. You had your chance.

  “Have a drink, and tell me why you’re here,” she said. “I’m sure it’s not to tell me you’re still infatuated with me.” She saw a flicker of doubt there, an uncertainty. Interesting, she thought.

  “There’s been a change in plans,” he said. “It’s time to start the hunt.”

  “Already? I thought Gess needed time to recover…”

  “I’ll be leading,” Argus said. “It’s my team now.” Razel considered him, well aware of the skepticism in her expression. “We can’t afford to wait, and I’m the only one besides Gess who can track the thar’koon with any efficiency. So I have to go.”

  Razel looked away and finished her drink. She remembered him, smiling, laughing with her. Talking deep into the night. Sweating, breathless in the dark, melting into one another, a coiled ring of sex and skin.

  “Well…alright,” she said. “Where’s the rest of the team?”

  “I’ll take you to them,” he said. “Everyone else has been assembled. After we go over some details we’ll transport directly into Gallador via cutgates.”

  “Saved the best one of the team for last?” she asked with a sad smile.

  She saw regret in his eyes. Clearly he wanted to say something more, but he couldn’t, and the same went for her. She wanted to tell him how she thought about him from time to time, how she missed their long nights, missed his innocence and charm. She wanted to tell him how she wanted to take him upstairs and spend another night with him, one last night, but she couldn’t, because for as much as she wanted to throw away that ring on her finger she wouldn’t.

  You and I had our chance, Argus. And then we lost it.

  Razel wouldn’t say any of that. It wasn’t the time. For them, that time would never come.

  Twenty-Five

  Argus grew more adept at crafting cutgates by the hour. He gathered his unusual team in an underground meeting chamber in Ebonmark. The lair had once been used by agents of the Black Guild, but now the dungeons and the manor above were the property of Marros Slayne and his Black Eagles. Slayne was there, watching Argus and the others – Razel, Jar’rod, Fon and Brutus – like a predator.

  They armed and armored themselves and readied supplies both mundane and magical. They took what little rest they needed.

  Within the hour the five person team was ready, and they, along with Slayne and a handful of his Black Eagles, stepped through another cutgate to search for their prey. Just before they departed Argus made one thing perfectly clear – once they started, they were committed to their task until it was finished.

  Their mission was simple: find and kill Kala Azaean, the Crown Imperial Princess of Jlantria.

  Twenty-Six

  Light flashed before her eyes.

  Death?

  No. Memory.

  The Chul’s magic had proved more effective than she’d feared. They’d caught her and Kath by surprise.

  How did I live through that?

  The Chul warrior appeared out of nowhere. The Skull of the Moon had allowed him to sneak around the hill and come at them from behind. Ijanna’s arcane senses didn’t note his presence until it was too late.

  A jagged blade swept at Kath. The young warrior raised his arm just in time, and the weapon ripped open his gauntlet and sliced into the back of his hand. Blood flew onto his face before he stumbled backwards and fell down the hill. Ijanna saw him land next to the trench, and she heard the rest of the pack howl as they charged out of the dark.

  She brandished the thar’koon and met Kath’s attacker. He snarled through filed teeth, and his eyes glimmered with madness. His stark white face had been painted dark with oil and blood in the likeness of a skull.

  The thar’koon spun like extensions of her hands. She battered the Chul’s weapon away with one blade and sliced open his face with the other, shattering his jawbone and splashing herself with his blood. The pain didn’t stop him: the Chul threw himself at her, knocking her swords aside and pinning her against a rock. Ijanna grunted as the air was pushed from her lungs. She felt rancid breath on her skin, and sharp blows landed against her ribs and made her cry out in pain.

  Fear washed through her. Ijanna clawed and fought through the stinging hurt. Their arms were locked, but he was stronger than she was, and her head slammed back against the stone. Ijanna’s vision blurred.

  No. Not like this.

  She fought through the pain, focused her thoughts, and Breathed. The Veil flowed so fast from her lungs she felt herself hollowed. Blood vapors wrapped around the Chul’s face and burned his flesh. His eyes boiled and his skin burned, and when his grip slackened Ijanna ripped the short blade from her belt and plunged it into his throat.

  Down below, Kath growled with anger as the rest of the Chul came at him. He moved fast for such a large man, and for all of his claims of having little battle experience he handled himself like a veteran. Kath ducked beneath a Chul’s sword and nearly ripped the man in half with a counterstrike from his axe. A second Chul came around the edge of the trench, howling loudly and flailing a twisted scimitar. Kath swung but the Chul leapt back, then closed in and slashed the boy across the face. Ijanna’s heart jumped into her throat. Kath fell to his knees, groaning in pain, and the Chul raised his blade to finish him off.

  Ijanna Breathed the Veil and sent a blue haze of ice through the Chul’s mind. The cannibal warrior hesitated long enough for Kath to rise and bury his axe-blade in the other man’s face, blasting blood and bone across the ground.

  “Kath!” she shouted. The other six Chul were just a few yards from the trench. “Get back!”

  He scrambled up the hill and away from the rift, and even from a distance she saw blood run from a wide gash across his cheek. Ijanna hefted the crossbow and sparked a flame with her mage’s breath, and the small pot of oil caught alight. She took aim at the lead Chul as he approached the dark slick Kath had left spread across the dry brush and dead grass. The Chul were almost there, just a few more feet.

  Ijanna drew a deep and steadying breath. She saw her son in her mind’s eye, lying on the ground with a blade in his back.

  He will not have died for nothing.

  She released her breath and fired. The flaming bolt tore across the night like a shooting star. The Chul’s hideous faces were lit by the dank glow, and their cold eyes shone in the dull light.

  The bolt struck the ground, and fire tore into the warriors. Bodies blazed into crackling fountains. A pair of burning men fell forward and into the trench, and Ijanna heard them scrape against jagged nails and sharp stones. They felt no pain, and would die in silence.

  Only two Chul avoided the flames, one man and one woman. They raced up the slope and towards the shelter of standing stones, just black silhouettes against the wall of fire at their backs. Ijanna reached for another bolt, but a curved dagger flew forward and landed in her shoulder. She screamed and fell to her knees, her strength gone.

  The male Chul drove a sword straight through the meaty part of Kath’s right le
g, pinning him to the ground. Kath howled in pain. He swung his axe but the Chul knocked it from his grip, so Kath smashed the warrior in the jaw with his mailed fist and knocked him down the hill.

  The female Chul kicked Kath in the face and sent him onto his back, then drew a wickedly curved blade and closed in on Ijanna.

  Ijanna Breathed the Veil. Her wounded flesh knit itself together with painful speed and her eyes snapped wide open as a wave of energy shot through her body like a bolt of lightning. Her hands found the thar’koon where they’d fallen to the ground. The knife in her shoulder smoldered and smoked before it fell to pieces.

  The Veil took over. She moved in a blur, no longer in control of her own actions. Whispers scraped at her mind. She saw the Black Tower, felt herself moving in its shadow. Black lightning danced across her vision.

  I am no one’s victim.

  She rose to her feet as the woman came close and drove the thar’koon into her attacker’s chest. The dead black swords chilled with power, but the woman’s blood hissed as Ijanna cut her open from groin to neck. Intestines spilled and steamed on the dead desert floor.

  Burning bodies pulled themselves up and out of the trench at the bottom of the hill. Even from fifty yards away Ijanna saw the rage in their eyes.

  “Kath, come on!” she shouted. He collapsed into her arms, and it took all of Ijanna’s strength to hold him up. Flaming shadows rose behind them, immolated warriors who moved forward in spite of the flesh dripping from their bones.

  She and Kath worked their way up into the cover of the standing stones. Blood pooled from Kath’s wounded leg as they stumbled up the hill, but he tried his best to keep his weight from smothering her.

  The Chul’s howls cut through the air and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. A small field of broken stones was all that stood between them and their attackers. The Chul rolled in the dirt to douse the flames, then gathered their weapons and started after them.