“You have to cover for us,” she’d explained. “If anyone asks, say we’re sorting through all our childhood toys in the tower attic. Tell them it’s the only place we’ll feel safe until your father puts my new bodyguard in place. And whatever you do, tell them we don’t want to be disturbed!”
Cedric had made no attempt to hide his displeasure, but he’d agreed all the same.
“Just be careful,” he’d said as he waved them out of the castle gate.
Careful was exactly what Elodie intended to be. Hamblebury was part of the Darrand estate, which meant its inhabitants might well be hostile to any Vicerins venturing here. Hence the cloaks.
In any event, she needn’t have worried. Although the village was busy with men and women going about their daily chores—chopping wood, winnowing grain, repairing roofs—its inhabitants seemed somehow sad and turned in on themselves.
Maybe it’s the war. Or perhaps life in Hamblebury is just hard.
One of the villagers—a middle-aged woman with a spreading belly and tired eyes—did eventually look up at them. Elodie smiled at her and asked if she knew where Frida lived. The woman pointed toward a thatched cottage almost lost in the fog. Elodie thanked her and they rode on.
“What about the horses?” said Sylva as they dismounted. There was no hitching rail outside the cottage, just a stack of logs cut for firewood, and the horses wouldn’t have to wander far to get lost.
“They’ll be all right.” Elodie nodded to Samial.
Sylva smiled. “Of course!” She might not be able to see the ghost, but by now she was becoming used to his presence.
Elodie knocked on the door. A boy of about five years old opened it. Upon seeing Elodie and Sylva, he called for his mother. A short, skinny woman appeared and studied them with shrewd gray eyes. Her hair was gray too, drawn into a tight bun, and her baggy black dress reached all the way to the ground.
“Strangers,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly deep. “What brings you?”
“Are you Frida?” Elodie asked.
After a long pause the woman said, “Yes.”
“My mother is sick,” said Sylva. “Someone told us you might be able to help.”
Another pause.
“I might. Come.”
The door was low enough that they had to duck, but the cottage’s interior was warm and welcoming, with a large hearth in which a fire blazed. Over the fire hung a cooking pot. Through another door Elodie saw a pantry stocked with what looked like jars of food and preserves. The boy was hiding in there, staring at them with wide eyes, his thumb corked in his mouth.
Elodie looked around, momentarily confused. She’d never been here before. So why does it feel like home?
“How does she ail?”
“What?” Elodie was still staring into the pantry. Those aren’t preserves. They’re potions. And that isn’t a pot. It’s a cauldron.
“How does she ail?” Frida repeated. “The sick mother.”
“She’s eaten hardly anything for days,” said Sylva, who didn’t appear to have noticed anything strange about the cottage. “Except for a few spoons of broth. Her skin is cold and pale, sort of greenish. And she won’t . . . she won’t wake up. . . .”
Frida gave Elodie a curious look, then shooed the boy out of the pantry. He ran from the cottage, still sucking his thumb. Frida rummaged among the shelves for a moment, then returned holding a small bottle of dark green liquid.
Potion, Elodie thought.
Her eyes roved over countless more bottles stacked on the pantry shelves. That one cures backache, she thought. That one removes warts.
She shook herself. How could she possibly know such things?
Frida placed the bottle into Elodie’s hands.
“Use but a little,” she said. “Too much, and she will sleep forever.”
As she released the bottle, her fingertips brushed Elodie’s skin. A jolt ran up Elodie’s arm, and it was all she could do not to cry out. Frida’s eyes widened, and she knew the gray-haired woman had felt it too.
“Witch blood!” said Frida. “Your mother?”
“Yes. My mother was a witch.”
Sylva gasped beside her, but Elodie felt a rush of understanding. So that was why the cottage had felt so immediately homely. Her mother must have had potions too, and knowledge like Frida’s, maybe even lived in a cottage like this. . . .
Questions were bubbling up inside her, but before she could ask them, the boy burst in.
“Men!” he wailed. “Men riding monsters!”
Fear filled Frida’s gray eyes. “I knew he would come. Vicerin has left us alone until now. Now he is here!”
From outside came the sound of hoofbeats and long, wailing cries. Frida bustled the boy back into the pantry and opened a trapdoor in the floor.
“Hide with us,” she said urgently, lowering the boy into the cellar. “If Vicerin’s soldiers see you, they will kill you.”
“No,” said Sylva. “They won’t.”
She threw off her cloak, revealing her dress with its blue Vicerin sash. Frida gasped.
“I am Sylva Mayanne Vicerin. And they will answer to my command!”
Before Elodie could stop her, Sylva had rushed out through the door. She hurried after her, the little boy’s words echoing in her head.
Men riding monsters. What does that mean?
Outside, the mist swirled like torn silk. Hulking shapes moved through it: men on horseback, carrying swords.
But horses don’t have antlers. And those weapons are too long to be swords.
“I thought it was my father’s men,” said Sylva, her eyes wide with confusion. “Who are they?”
A huge animal burst through the fog. It was twice the size of Elodie’s horse. From the back of its domed head sprouted a pair of spreading antlers, much bigger than those on the stags’ heads hanging on the walls of the castle. Its eyes were as black as the night sky.
On its back rode a man wearing armor made from bony plates, while over his head was thrown a scaly hood. The hood was lined with teeth. The face inside it was coarse of skin and dark with grime. He carried a bone spear from which hung a ragged white pennant.
Now she knew what they were: she’d seen drawings in her books of these wandering barbarians, hunting herds of elk on the frozen plains of Yalasti.
“They’re Helkrags.”
Beside the log pile, Samial was struggling with the two horses, both of which were rearing in terror. The Helkrag bore down on them, brandishing his spear. Huntress broke free from Samial’s grip and kicked out with her back legs, causing half the logs to tumble outward in a wooden avalanche, right in front of the oncoming rider. With an incoherent yell, he pulled his strange steed around and rode away into the mist.
Sylva retreated back into the doorway, only to meet Frida venturing out.
The witch’s face was white with shock. “Helkrags! But they never leave the Icy Wastes!”
Elodie frowned. It didn’t make sense. “Vicerin sent his army to Yalasti to wipe them out,” she said. “What are they doing here?”
“Father’s plan must have failed,” said Sylva.
“No!” Elodie’s mind was racing. The pieces fell into place. “This is what he planned all along. He never wanted to destroy the Helkrags. He wanted to recruit them!”
“But why would he do that?” Sylva wailed. “Why bring barbarians into Ritherlee?”
“Elodie!” said Samial, still fighting to keep control of the frightened horses. “We must go!”
The fog was hectic with bulky shadows and thick with distant screams. This was no mere skirmish; this was a full-scale battle. What chance would these villagers have against such a formidable foe?
Not much, Elodie thought grimly.
A sound like rising thunder signaled the approach of yet more riders. Three elks loomed from the mist, each carrying an armor-clad warrior. The one in the lead carried a white pennant at the end of his spear: the same man they’d first seen, now with reinf
orcements.
The nearest Helkrag—a huge brute whose hood was made not of scales but blue-and-white striped fur—spurred his antlered steed straight toward Elodie. He was wielding a heavy bone ax. Glad she’d come armed, Elodie drew out her sword and met his blow with its blade. The two weapons locked together. As the elk sped past, she ducked her head and twisted her body, wrenching the sword and tipping the rider off balance. He flew from the crude saddle and landed on his back in the mud. Completing her spin, Elodie drove her sword between two of the bony plates protecting his chest. It sank home with a satisfying crunch, and the Helkrag’s body went limp.
“To your left!” shouted Samial.
Elodie whirled around to see the second rider swerving toward her. At the same time, the warrior with the white pennant was bearing down on Sylva and Frida.
Sidestepping, she let the elk run past, then spun to face it as its rider reined it into a turn. In the same instant, Samial pulled the lowermost logs out from beneath the stack of firewood that was still standing. The rest of the logs tumbled across the yard, smashing into the legs of the elk. Elodie heard snapping sounds that might have been splintering wood, or fracturing bones, or both.
With an unearthly bellow, the elk fell onto its side, its broken legs splayed horribly in the air. Unable to jump clear, the Helkrag was pinned beneath it. Both elk and rider lay helpless amid the scattered logs, writhing in pain, until Elodie stepped forward and cut their throats, one after the other. The entire encounter had taken little more than two breaths, and throughout it she’d felt nothing but icy calm.
By now the leader had reached the doorway. He brandished his ax in one hand, and his spear in the other. Sylva cringed back. Elodie had made her bring her sword, but in her panic Sylva seemed to have forgotten she was carrying it.
Elodie started to run, but she was too far away.
Then Frida threw out her hand. It was a curiously idle gesture; she looked as if she were tossing seed out for the chickens. Something glittered in the air.
When it met the Helkrag’s face, it caught fire.
The flames were brief and bright. When they subsided, Elodie glimpsed the charred edges of the Helkrag’s tooth-lined hood and the red mass of burned flesh where his face had once been. She clamped her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.
The barbarian warrior slumped in his saddle, and the elk bore his body away into the mist.
“Elodie!” Samial called again. “We cannot stay here. There are too many of them!”
He was right. Shouts rang through the mist. Bone weapons clashed against what Elodie guessed might be farming implements as, unseen in the fog, the battle raged throughout Hamblebury.
“We have what we came for,” said Sylva shakily. “We have to go.”
Elodie’s hands remained clamped on her sword. What kind of queen would she become if she turned her back on those who needed her help?
I can’t help. Not them, not here, not now.
But she could help Sylva’s mother.
Shaking, she put her sword away.
“Samial,” she said. “Bring the horses. We’re leaving. Now.” She eyed Frida and added, “Do you and your son want to live?”
Elodie remembered little of the desperate ride back to the castle. They hurried immediately to Lady Vicerin’s quarters and found Cedric waiting outside the door. The minute she saw his face, Elodie knew something was terribly wrong.
“Oh, Sylva,” he said, tears spilling over his cheeks. “I wish you’d been here.”
“Here for what?” The shock in her eyes and the tremble in her voice made it clear that Sylva already knew.
Elodie followed them inside. Lady Vicerin lay in her bed, and Elodie’s first impression was that she looked just the same as when they’d left.
Then she saw that the pale woman’s chest was utterly still.
“She died not long after you set off,” said Cedric, fighting to keep his voice steady.
“We were too late,” Sylva sobbed. She rubbed her dead mother’s hand, as if she were trying to urge life back into it.
Tears were pricking Elodie’s eyes. She turned away. The drapes were open now that Lady Vicerin had gone and misty light poured through the window, bathing the bed with a cool, gray glow.
Frida tugged at her sleeve.
“May I?” said the witch. Her eyes were oddly alert.
“I think it’s too late for potions.”
“You speak the truth. But that is not my meaning.”
Frida went to the bed and touched the back of her hand to Lady Vicerin’s brow. Then she ran her fingertips down the dead woman’s neck and pressed them against the top of her chest.
“Dead, yes,” she said at last. “But not sick.”
“Not . . . what do you mean?” said Sylva through her tears.
“This woman—your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Then, I’m sorry to say, your mother was not sick. This is poison. Your mother was murdered.”
Sylva and Cedric stared at Frida dumbfounded. Sylva’s throat tightened, and her shocked eyes opened wide. Elodie felt helpless, wanting to offer her some kind of comfort, but knowing there was nothing she could say.
Elodie’s eyes strayed to the empty bowl on the night table.
The broth! Captain Leom said he felt better when he stopped eating the broth!
Elodie felt cold all over.
Lord Vicerin. Every time, it comes back to you.
Everything was clear, painfully so. Vicerin had wanted Captain Leom out of the way before his men returned with the Helkrags.
But why kill Lady Vicerin?
Why would you want to poison your wife?
CHAPTER 21
Bracing himself, Gulph closed his fingers around the hilt of Slater’s sword, which Ossilius had jammed into the door mechanism. He pulled, and for a moment he thought the sword wasn’t going to move. Then, with an earsplitting screech, it came loose. Gulph flew backward, landing hard on the floor.
He lay there, panting, staring up at the low ceiling of the little storeroom. His whole body ached after the long climb up the crystal pillar and from scrambling over the many rockfalls during the even longer trek back through the tunnels. It would be so easy just to lie here. Safe from the bakaliss. Safe from the undead.
Safe from the prophecy.
But he wasn’t safe. And neither were his friends.
He sat up, checked the crown was still safe in the bundle on his back, used the dim torchlight to find his way to the lever that operated the door, and pulled it.
As the huge bull-headed statue rumbled aside, he opened himself to the strange, scratchy feeling that came over him whenever he turned invisible. He looked down at his body as it melted away, unnerved by the control he was developing over his power.
Powers, Gulph thought, remembering how he’d been able to read the memories of Sidebottom John. I have more than one talent now.
A gust of wind extinguished the torch. Even as the flame winked out, sunlight exploded over him. Gulph screwed up his eyes; for days he’d experienced only the dim twilight of Celestis, and the torrent of light was overwhelming.
Gradually his eyes adjusted. He stepped cautiously outside. Accompanying the flood of light was a thunderous cacophony of noise: the crash of falling stonework, the roar of flames, the guttural cries of the undead.
Gulph looked up at the statue of the bull-headed man and realized with a start that he had no idea how to close it from the outside. Nor did he have time to work it out.
Rummaging through some nearby wreckage, he found a heap of blackened timbers—the remains of a burned wagon. Working fast, he propped them across the secret doorway, then stood back and appraised his work.
Not perfect. But it will have to do.
Gulph turned and took a hard look at what Idilliam had become.
Most of the buildings outside the city wall had been knocked flat. Rubble was strewn all around. Countless fires blazed amid the ruins, sending pilla
rs of black smoke into the cloudless sky.
The undead were everywhere.
Crowds of them shambled through the ruins, tearing both at each other and at what was left of the outskirts of Idilliam. They all looked badly decayed, with flesh hanging from their bones. Many were little more than skeletons. The stench of rot was unbearable.
Gulph watched as one group of the undead grappled with another. A former soldier tore the arms from his opponent. The crippled corpse dropped to the ground and rolled sideways until its tattered shoulders made contact with the severed limbs. The arms reattached themselves, torn flesh knitting miraculously into broken bone, and the restored creature rose up in time to rip the head from the thing that had mutilated it.
Sickened, Gulph turned away, only to be faced by a gang of five corpses staggering in his direction. From the colorful hanging scraps of their clothing, he guessed they’d once been courtiers.
Fighting the urge to vomit, he drew Kalia’s sword. To his relief, the blade had picked up his invisibility. He held it before him, reassured by its unseen weight, hoping desperately that its power remained intact.
But he didn’t need to use it. The undead passed him by, leaving him free to make his way toward the distant city gates, which stood open. He ran most of the way, avoiding the undead as best he could, and breathing through his mouth in an effort to avoid the dreadful smell.
When he reached the open gateway, he stopped and stared.
On the great stone arch, impaled on long metal spikes, were two severed heads. The skin on their faces had turned a sickly green color and had clearly been pecked at by crows. But Gulph recognized them all the same.
One head belonged to Nynus.
The other was Magritt’s.
For the second time in moments, Gulph felt all his strength drain away.
I can’t stay here. I’d rather face the bakaliss than this.
He tried to tear his eyes from the decomposed faces of the former king and dowager queen. But he couldn’t. So he closed them instead and conjured in his mind’s eye the image of another face: that of his friend Pip, whom he’d come here to rescue.
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