Croy watched the smoke rise into a perfectly placid sky.
“It’s Ness,” he said again.
The whole city could be burning. The barbarians might have taken it, and razed it to the ground. Cythera could be dead, she could be-she could be He closed his eyes for a moment only and prayed. He begged the Lady to let him see Cythera once more. If only for a moment before he died.
Then he opened his eyes again.
“There will be no day of rest,” he announced.
Sir Hew did not argue. The translators called out the order to the captains, who relayed it to their serjeants, who passed it on to the men in words they could understand. There was probably a great deal of grumbling back there but Croy didn’t have to listen to it. That was one advantage of being the man in charge.
“March, double time,” he said.
Behind him, drums began to beat, and a fife made a good attempt at playing a rambunctious tune.
Chapter One Hundred Four
Morget raced back into the camp, Balint at his heels, clucking at him not to exert himself and reopen his wound.
He had never felt healthier nor more vigorous in his life. He clutched in one hand the severed shard of Fangbreaker. In the other he held Dawnbringer, the blade naked and whole. A symbol, if one was even needed, that he was the stronger leader.
He would slay Morgain in front of every warrior in the horde-after all, she had started their duel, and no man would stop him from finishing it-and then he would have no rivals. No one to challenge his supremacy.
Yet when he arrived at the camp, it was to find a third of the tents already taken down and packed away. Everywhere barbarians were on the move, bundled in thick furs as if they planned a long journey through the snow.
Hurlind lay drunk in the aisle between the encampments of two clans. The worthless scold stared up at Morget with a bleary eye. Dried mead formed a crust around his mouth. “Hail the returning hero,” he slurred, and pushed himself up on one elbow. “Survivor of a great ordeal. It’s not every man who can take a spanking from his little sister and hold his head high.”
Morget gave the old man a savage kick to the ribs. “You’re no favorite of the Great Chieftain anymore. Just another warrior, barely able to lift a blade. If you can fight, then stand. If not, I’ll take you on as my thrall.” Morget wanted nothing more than to slaughter the scold where he lay. But the law was clear-scolds, even the scolds of dead chieftains, could not be killed for words. Only for treachery or for boring their audience.
Balint bent over the old man and stared into his face. “Where is Morget’s sister? My master has unfinished business with her.”
“She’s there,” Hurlind said, gesturing vaguely toward the center of the camp. “Gathering her warriors. She said you were dead, Mountainslayer.”
Morget kicked Hurlind again and hurried through the maze of tents. Even as he watched, more of them came down. Their poles were separated into pieces, their hides shaken wildly to clear off accumulated ice, then folded and shoved into packs.
Morget grabbed the first man he saw and threw him into the snow. “Put that tent back up,” he commanded. The warrior just glared at him.
Enough. They would all obey him when he was named Great Chieftain. They would learn to fear him, one and all. He raced toward the thickest knot of activity, where horses were being loaded with gear and axes were being wiped down with animal fat to keep off the rust.
Morget shoved his way through the milling warriors and thralls until he spied Morgain sitting her horse in the very midst of the chaos.
She laughed bitterly to see him. “I like your new necklace,” she said, pointing at the coarse thread that held his throat together. Balint had been an indifferent seamstress, though she had saved Morget’s life. “Perhaps I’ll give you a matching belt, after I cut you in half.”
“That might prove difficult, with a broken sword.” Morget held up the shard of Fangbreaker until it blazed in the sun.
For a moment all the activity in the camp stopped. Men dropped their burdens, tents remained erect as their owners leaned on their poles.
Everyone wanted to see what happened next.
Morgain’s horse whickered, perhaps sensing that anything-anything at all-could happen in the next moment. She patted the animal’s neck.
Morget lifted Dawnbringer and struck its blade against the shard of metal in his hand. Light burst from his Ancient Blade, light brighter than the reflection of the sun. “I would continue our conversation,” he said.
The swordsmen of the West used the word conversation to describe the ringing back-and-forth of two blades engaged in combat. Every man listening got the joke. A few even chuckled.
Morgain drew what remained of Fangbreaker. Though it was much shorter than Dawnbringer now, it was still broader and heavier. It looked more like a meat cleaver than a sword. But it was still more than capable of killing a man.
Especially one who had been mortally wounded the night before, and saved only by the ministrations of a clever dwarf.
Morget took a step toward his sister. If this is how it ends, let it end, he thought. Let her slay me, and I will accept that my wyrd has run its course.
Yet it seemed his doom had further to take him.
With a look of supreme disgust, Morgain put her broken sword back in its sheath. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure, brother. Yet I haven’t the time. My clans have spoken. We head east, to winter in Helstrow. Where we should have been all along. That was the wish of the Great Chieftain, after all, until you tricked him into coming here for no profit.”
“The Great Chieftain is dead,” Morget pointed out. “His wishes-”
“His wishes remain our course, because he has not been replaced. No man unites the clans now. No man speaks for us all.”
“Call a conclave. Bring every chieftain forward. We will elect a new Great Chieftain here and now.”
There was a great cheering and acclaim from the gathered warriors-yet it was not unanimous. More than a few of the chieftains only stood tight-lipped and glaring.
“I think not,” Morgain said. Her skull-painted face cracked in a wide grin. “You forget, my brother, that I am a chieftain myself. And a conclave cannot be called unless every chieftain agrees to attend. I refuse.”
A chorus of hissing and calls of cowardice fell on Morgain like a salvo of arrows-but not every man joined in. She turned and gestured at her thralls. They sluggishly returned to their work, breaking down tents and packing horses. They were making ready to leave at once.
And there was nothing Morget could do to stop them.
Ah, but there was one thing. He could officially challenge her. He could name her a coward. He could call on his own chieftains to fight Morgain and her clans. He could make war on her.
Civil war-while the Army of Free Men camped not thirty miles away, and Ness stood looming over them, unconquered. Morg the Wise would have had a good laugh at the very idea. It would take a leader of surpassing folly to even consider it.
Morget’s wyrd thought it was exactly what he should do.
His sister looked down at him, waiting to see which way the wind would blow. She was ready come what may.
Morget burned, his heart and his head already coming to blows inside him.
“You’re a fool if you don’t put that sword away,” Balint whispered up at him. “No man leads a nation with his cock hanging out of his trousers.”
She was right. Reason could make only one choice, and even bloodlust must bow to reason some of the time.
Morget smiled down at Balint. Then he put Dawnbringer in its scabbard. He held onto the shard of Fangbreaker. It was his last badge of glory, the one thing Morgain couldn’t take from him.
“How many clans ride with my sister?” he shouted.
Nearly a third of the chieftains gathered before Ness gave their names. Two thousand warriors and thralls would march with them.
That still left plenty of men loyal to Morget. Far more
than he needed to take the Free City. “When I’m done here, I’ll come for each of you. I won’t rest until you pay for this betrayal,” he said.
“You know where to find them,” Morgain said. “Come to Helstrow and we’ll be waiting. That is, if you live through the winter.” Then she spurred her horse and rode off.
“Go,” Morget said to the faithless chieftains who followed her. “Go hide from snow and wind behind a high wall, you cowards.” He watched and shouted abuse until the last man had taken to his heels, heading east along the road. Then he turned his face away from them and started for where Hurlind lay in the snow.
His rage demanded bloodshed. If he could not avenge himself on his sister, he would turn instead on the last of his father’s faithful retainers. He would kick Hurlind until he was given lawful provocation-and then he would carve the old man like a goose.
Before he could reach the scold, though, a peal of thunder rocked the earth and Morget was thrown into the snow. Balint lay next to him, struggling to get up.
He looked at the walls of the city and saw a great pillar of smoke rising toward heaven. “What in the name of Mother Death just happened?” he demanded.
The dwarf looked where he pointed. “Perhaps they’ve decided if they can’t hold their city, they’d rather burn it down.”
“If I take Ness, only to find it a burned-out husk,” he said to her softly, “they will write songs about my folly. And I will never become Great Chieftain. You get that wall down.”
“Work’s going on apace, but you can’t hurry a shit or a siege,” Balint insisted.
“You can,” he told her, “when the option is having your belly slit and being dragged behind a horse by your bowels.” He grabbed her collar. The spikes dug into his hand until it bled. “You bring it down on the morrow. Use every man in this camp, force on them every pick, every shovel. Dig with your broken fingernails if you must. You bring that wall down before one more chieftain decides to follow my sister. Do it or I will use your defleshed skull as a codpiece.”
The vulgarity of his oath seemed to get her attention. She ran toward the mouth of the tunnels faster than he’d ever seen a dwarf move before.
Chapter One Hundred Five
Malden ordered Velmont to search for other survivors in the university cloister and organize teams of bucket-bearers to put out the fire. He picked Slag up in his arms and carried him away from the rubble. The dwarf’s body was no great burden-dwarves were slender creatures to start with, and now, missing an arm, burned over so much of his body, Slag felt as light as a child.
The dwarf spoke no more as Malden staggered through the snow-clogged streets. Before they had gotten properly out of reach of the dizzying fumes of the fire, Slag had fallen unconscious in Malden’s arms. It was quite likely he was already dead.
Malden did not have the heart to find out for sure.
He did not know how far he walked, carrying that slight burden. He was not aware of where he was, exactly, when Cythera found him. He heard her speaking and saw her mouth move, but her words entered his brain and got lost there in the same maze that had confounded his own thoughts. He realized suddenly that she was trying to take Slag away from him. He resisted her, though he could not have said why.
Cythera gestured for him to follow her. She went to the door of the nearest house, the mansion of some great merchant. The door was boarded over but all the windows on the second floor had been smashed in-probably by thieves, back when there was still something to be looted in the Golden Slope. Malden started to climb up the side of the house but couldn’t get far with Slag in his arms. Cythera shook her head. Then she lifted a hand and the boards across the door creaked and their nails glowed red hot, then dripped like candle wax. The boards clattered into the street.
Her witchcraft was weak, she had said. Her powers still untested. He wondered what marvels she would perform when she had learned some more.
Inside, the house was cold and empty and silent. They went into the kitchen and Cythera convinced Malden to lay Slag down on an oak table there. She pointed at the fire, and a small flame leapt forth from the cold ashes. “Get fuel, or it’ll go out again,” she told him. She had to repeat the instruction three times.
Malden went and fetched the boards from where they lay in the street. He fed them to the fire. When they didn’t catch right away, he found an expensive-looking chair in the front room and smashed it for kindling.
By the time he had the fire going properly, Cythera was already at work on Slag’s broken body. She washed the soot and blood away from his many wounds, and for the first time Malden saw just how badly Slag had been hurt. He had to look away. He couldn’t breathe.
“It’s… it’s bad,” Cythera told him. Her voice was thin and ready to break. “He lives, but his heart is fluttering like a bird in a snare. He has perhaps a few minutes left. He’ll stop breathing soon, and then he’ll convulse, and eventually he’ll just… stop. Ah. Oh, Malden. It’s happening. He’s dying.”
“Please. He’s my friend. There must be something you can do. Maybe-Maybe just make him comfortable. Take away his pain.”
Cythera stared at Malden with desperate eyes. He didn’t understand-she was wasting time, time Slag didn’t have.
“You’re a witch now. That has to count for something,” he begged.
“It counts for a great deal. And it’s why I can’t-”
“Stop this! I can see in your eyes that you have the power,” he said. “Don’t you care about Slag? How can you look at him like this and not help him?”
“I’m supposed to stay detached,” Cythera said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
Malden had no idea what her words meant. He didn’t care. “Don’t you love me anymore? Do this for me, Cythera. Save him because you love me!”
“You have no idea what you’re asking.”
Her words were defiant but he knew he’d moved her. She would do it, he was sure of it. He opened his mouth, intending to renew his entreaties, but something in her countenance warned him not to speak. Eventually she broke his gaze.
“This is it. The moment Mother foresaw, when I break my promise to her,” she said. The words were not for Malden, so he did not question them. “I thought it would be easier to resist. But some temptations are bigger than us, aren’t they?”
“Cythera,” Malden moaned. “He’s dying.”
“Yes,” she said. “Even Coruth couldn’t save him now.”
But then she began to incant, speaking words that didn’t sound human at all. Malden smelled a sudden reek of brimstone, and red light played across the walls. He felt something move in the room behind him and he turned to look, expecting-well, he didn’t know what to expect. There was nothing there, of course. He started to turn back to face Cythera and Slag but the air felt like it had frozen solid and he could barely move.
“Don’t look at me,” Cythera commanded, and he might as well have been made of marble. His neck wouldn’t turn at all. He could only stare at the red-lit walls and wonder what was going on.
“Cythera-” he tried, but she interrupted him.
“I’m going to save his life. But there will be a price to be paid.”
“Anything,” Malden told her. “Do you need gold? Rare medicinal herbs? The powder of crushed diamonds? Tell me and it’ll be done.”
“It’s not your price to pay,” she said in a voice that was almost gentle. “Malden-is it wrong to heal? Is it ever wrong to heal?”
“I don’t think so,” he told her. “What is the price?”
She wouldn’t answer his question.
“I can do it,” she said. “I can.”
She worked for nearly an hour. Malden stayed frozen in place the whole time. He heard… things, unguessable, unspeakable things moving about the room. He heard them whisper utter foulness to Cythera.
He heard her answer them back in kind.
As impossible as it seemed, as terrified as he was, Malden started to drift of
f into a kind of doze before it was done. Yet when she finished, he snapped instantly awake and realized he could move again. He spun around and found her slouched over the table, leaning close over Slag’s body as if praying over the dwarf. Her back heaved as though she’d been drained completely of her vigor.
“I had to call on certain… spirits. Creatures that haunt the ether, always looking to enter our world, to find any way out of their prison. It is forbidden to open a way for them.” She was silent for a while. He heard her gasping for breath.
“Did you let them in?” Malden asked. He didn’t care if she had, though he had begun to understand what she’d done. If there were anything less than Slag’s life at stake, it would have been unforgivable. The spirits she spoke of were demons, he was certain. Denizens of Sadu’s pit of souls. The creatures Croy was oath-bound to fight against. The demons Acidtongue had been made to slay.
“No,” she said, though it sounded like she wasn’t entirely sure. “I needed their knowledge, not their physical forms. I was able to convince them to tell me what I needed to know without freeing them.”
“Then you did the right thing,” Malden assured her.
“It was difficult. The dwarves spurn all nature of magic,” she said, her voice the whisper of a page in a book being turned by an index finger, nothing more. “The… spirits were loath to help. I didn’t have the strength to convince them. So I compelled them. I compelled them, Malden. A witch does not compel. A witch bargains, cajoles, begs, tricks, cheats-never compels. Mother taught me that much. She didn’t teach me this.”
Malden understood only a little of what she was saying, but he knew she was distressed by what she’d done. He placed a hand on her back, intending to comfort her.
She flinched away from his touch.
Then she turned to face him. He saw that a streak of white had appeared amidst her sable hair.
He had seen practitioners of magic-sorcerers, not witches-deformed by congress with demons. Their faces and bodies had been distorted to perversions of the human shape. This was a very mild alteration compared to some he’d seen. Yet he understood. These slight changes were only the beginning. The process was gradual, but irreversible. Every time she used this kind of power, the changes would become more salient.
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