The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1)

by Davis, H. Anthe

  He raised his hand to his nose. Bleeding.

  A moment later, an old scar on his arm slit itself open like a wet red mouth.

  His hands trembled. Suddenly blood-spots blossomed everywhere: on his breech-legs, on the belly of his tunic, on his back where they mingled with the fear-sweat. On his arms and shoulders, inside his mouth—a sudden flood of salt and copper from where he had cracked his jaw almost a year ago.

  No pain, only numbness. And blood. Rivers of it. Oceans of it.

  The darkness strained inside his head, bringing with it a gust of strange, whispering voices. Scales on scales. He felt himself falling toward it helplessly—toward the ruins, toward the rot, the tortured earth, the churning waters. He had no strength to resist.

  For only a moment, he saw the faces of the soldiers around the cart.

  Then he slipped into the black.

  *****

  By the time the Crimsons reached the wreck of the cart, it was too late.

  A portal hung open in the air, showing the pristine white marble of a casting-chamber beyond. Bodies were being levitated through by scarf-wrapped mages in yellow robes. Trevere flung himself from his horse as he drew near, but a yellow-tabarded soldier blocked his way.

  “You can’t—“ was all the soldier managed before Trevere punched him in the throat.

  Lieutenant Sarovy reined in and watched as Gold soldiers rushed to bar the Hunter’s progress. Trevere’s hand flickered toward the hilt of that nasty dagger periodically, but he never drew it; fists and feet and fearlessness seemed enough for him. Only when a mage broke off from inspecting the fetid ruins of the cart and flung wires of golden light at him, binding his arms, did he slow and finally give up.

  Sarovy dismounted as the Gold soldiers brought their blades to bear upon the Hunter. “Stand down,” he called. “I would speak with your commanding officer.”

  The nearest Gold soldier gave him a sneer and a once-over before spotting Sarovy’s mark of rank. His expression turned surly, and he looked toward the portal and hollered, “Captain!”

  A tall, armored man turned from arguing with one of the Gold mages and strode over, the soldiers withdrawing from his path. Sarovy straightened and brought his fist up in salute. The Gold captain returned it stiffly and looked Sarovy over. He was a sturdy older Wynd, grey-haired and hatchet-faced, with cold keen eyes. Sarovy was reminded of the drillmasters he had served under as a child in Trivestes’ youth corps.

  “Lieutenant,” said the Captain gruffly. “What brings a Crimson troop into Gold territory?”

  “We pursue a fugitive, sir,” said Sarovy. He lowered his fist and nodded toward Trevere, still bound and white-faced with anger. “Under the command of the Crimson Hunter.”

  “Hunter,” echoed the Captain dubiously. He stared at Trevere for a long moment, then made a cutting gesture toward the mage who handled the golden wires. With a snort of displeasure, the mage shook his hands as if untangling them, and the wires dissolved.

  Trevere lunged toward the portal, but a forest of swords blocked his way.

  “Hunter,” Sarovy said sharply. “The writ.”

  For an uncomfortable moment Trevere stood staring at the portal, gloved hands clenching and unclenching. Then, like a willful horse turned by the rein, he looked to Sarovy and the Gold captain, his face a mask. The soldiers around him tensed as he reached to his belt, but he only opened the scroll-case and slid the parchment free.

  The Gold captain took it and looked it over, then shook his hoary head. “You are beyond your jurisdiction,” he said, “Hunter or not. It is time for you to return to your own territory.”

  Sarovy nodded, but before he could speak, Trevere snapped, “You’ll tell me what happened, then I will use your portal and take my quarry. I outrank you, Captain.”

  “You outrank him,” the captain said, pointing the scroll at Sarovy. “But you can not lord over me; I am not Crimson.”

  Trevere narrowed his eyes. “You’ll do as I say,” he snarled, fingers drumming on the hilt of the long dagger, “or I’ll—“

  “Hunter,” said Sarovy.

  Trevere threw him a nasty look, but closed his mouth. His hand moved away from the dagger, and with his forearms he shoved the soldiers’ swords aside and stormed back to his fidgeting Sky horse and the girl-prisoner mounted nearby.

  “I apologize, sir,” said Sarovy once he was sure Trevere was not simply feinting. He clapped his fist to his armored chest and bowed his head to the captain. “It has been a long and fruitless pursuit. Please, if you would tell us what has occurred so that we might properly give our reports.”

  The captain cocked a brow at Sarovy, then gestured toward the wagon. “See for yourself. But keep your people back.”

  Giving the others the signal to stay, Sarovy approached the wagon. He only made it halfway before the stench hit and he recoiled, grimacing. He had seen the massacre at the Rift-top towers—the dead men strewn about half-burnt, their eyes bulging in the fear of their last moments—but this was worse, the smell taking over where sight failed. No corpses, but a swath of blood in the back of the cart as if someone had been dragged from it while gouting out their last moments; near it, a companion smear of ichor and rotten, liquefied flesh. Suddenly he understood why the mages worked with scarves wrapped over mouths and noses.

  “More in the front,” called the captain, staying well out of range. Reluctant but determined, Sarovy swung wide of the cart and then froze as he spotted the putrefying hulk of the cart-horse still bound in its traces. Its flanks heaved slowly, not from breath but from the sluggish labor of the maggots beneath its hide.

  Sickened, he stumbled away and bent low, urging his stomach to settle. The portal hung glimmering in the air opposite the cart and he focused on it for relief, and glimpsed a flock of Gold mages around men in reddish uniforms. He had to look to his own men quickly to verify that they had not been taken while his back was turned.

  They had not. He squinted again, registering that the tabards within the portal were Wyndish maroon and also noting a green-robed fellow—as out of place among the Gold mages as a stalk of marsh grass in the desert. Debriefing a local squad, he guessed. There were drips of blood and ichor on the polished white floor.

  The nausea subsided at last, and Sarovy lurched back to the Gold captain, wiping dank sweat from his face. The officer gave him a cold smile. “Enough?”

  “No, sir. Not yet. There were two bodies taken from here. Were either alive?”

  The captain snorted and gestured toward the cart. “What do you think? They were both down when we got here. The locals were falling all over themselves to be sick. I heard the young one was still breathing, but I doubt for long. He was bleeding like a sieve.”

  “And the other?”

  “Long dead, or so say the mages. A puddle plus some bones and clothes. They took it all away.”

  “To?”

  “The capital.”

  “Daecia City?”

  The captain gave Sarovy a look of great pity. “You’re a Trivestean. I can see it in your face. Kicked out of the Sapphire Army?”

  Sarovy stiffened. “Yes, sir,” he answered tightly.

  “And shunted to the Crimson. Heh. I doubt you’d understand. We’re all Wynds here.” The captain nodded to the edgy soldiers and the milling mages. “The Empire is our master but Wyndon is our mother. The Wyndish king is her spokesman. All things pass beneath his eye before they are given to your Emperor. And you may report that,” he finished with a sneer.

  Sarovy opened his mouth to argue—to say that Wyndon was a protectorate like all the western territories, not an independent kingdom; to question the sanity of those involved; to declare his loyalty to the Emperor. But the words died in his throat. “The Wyndish capital then,” he said. “Thynbell?”

  “At least you know your geography.”

  “But sir, surely—“

  “Get back to your men, lieutenant,” said the Gold captain. “Turn them around or call for a portal o
f your own, but remove yourself from my territory. Your task is discharged, and you have failed.”

  With that, he tossed the scroll back at Sarovy and turned away. Biting his tongue, Sarovy retreated to the Crimsons. His men dismounted at his gesture.

  “Voorkei,” he said, “we need a portal. Our pursuit is finished.”

  The ogrekin mage nodded and rummaged in his satchel. Sarovy held the writ out to Trevere, who snatched it away with such fury that the parchment tore along one end.

  “Is that it?” he hissed at Sarovy. “You’re giving up?”

  “Their jurisdiction is clear,” Sarovy said, though in his chest the knot of thwarted duty clenched. “We have no place here, Hunter.”

  “Their portal is right there! We can force our way through and take our quarry back!”

  Leveling his stare on Trevere, Sarovy said, “And what? Incite strife between the armies? None of us would survive it. Even if we retrieved the fugitive, the General would be forced to turn him over to the Gold Army again, along with our heads. Use yours, Hunter. We are finished here.”

  Trevere snarled and seemed about to speak, but the glass-topped beacon at the side of the road suddenly flared with an unearthly white light.

  Sarovy squinted against it, raising his hand to shade his eyes as the activity around the portal became a panicked flurry. He knew what the light meant. Those beacons lined all major Imperial roads and were meant to sense unauthorized magic and alert the local watch-mages. No doubt it was how the Golds had arrived on the scene so swiftly. But—

  Then he registered the faint, breathy hum coming from the sky, and understood.

  Still shielding his eyes, he stared into the east. The black specks of the flyers were easy to spot against the pale sky, drawing closer as the beacon continued its warning pulse, and the Gold mages scrambled to throw the last of their samples through the portal and herd their soldiers after. Sarovy’s mouth went dry as he realized that his men would be left behind.

  “Mount up,” he said hoarsely, backing toward his steed.

  “What are they, sir?” said Lancer Linciard.

  “Haelhene. White wraiths. Voorkei, on your horse. Pike the portal.” The black specks had become undulating diamonds now, with long stingers drifting behind them. Red slits opened and closed on their underside like breathing gills. Still higher than the treetops, they drifted closer, their riders only flickers of white above the black.

  “We are not tangling with them,” Sarovy said as he swung into the saddle, trying to keep the fear from his voice. He had not seen the haelhene since his exile, but some things could not be forgotten.

  He sawed on the reins and wheeled his horse about, and the beast—though a war-hardened Tasgard—went gratefully. All around him, his men fell in with their steeds, even Voorkei hauling about with a look of concern on his ugly face. Sarovy counted helms automatically as he set heels to the horse’s flanks. Five, ten, fifteen, eighteen…

  Trevere. Where is—

  The breathing hum intensified and he looked back to see the black flyers alight just as the Gold portal snapped shut. Each creature was broader than the broken cart but flat, its oily black body undulating in the air a few feet off the ground. The hum came from those gill-like vents on the underside, a low choral cycling of breath that sawed on his nerves. There were seven of them, and each bore a tall, slender rider as pale and bloodless as an ivory statue. White robes with deep hoods shadowed white masks, white mouths, translucent white throats. White hands held reins like silver threads, and in the pulse of the beacon, long white nails glittered like shards of glass.

  Beyond them, riding deeper into the Gold interior, were Trevere and the girl-prisoner.

  Hissing a curse, Sarovy slammed his heels into the horse’s sides and looked ahead as it lurched forward. The Hunter was mad; there was nothing more to be done. They had lost.

  He and his troop fled back toward the Rift’s edge as, one by one, the haelhene stepped down from their beasts and descended upon the cart.

  *****

  Closed eyelids twitched as life rushed in beneath them. For a long moment they stayed shut as the body adjusted to the return of its master—resumed breathing, resumed heartbeat. Then, slowly, they opened.

  With a regretful exhale, Inquisitor Archmagus Enkhaelen sat up to draw the runes on his scrying mirror.

  Part 2

  Thelema

  Chapter 16 – Divergence

  “Where are we going? What were those things?” hollered Lark as she rode after Trevere, but the assassin neither slowed nor spoke. For all her horse’s fleetness, Lark only barely stayed in range, the enchanted ribbon on her arm sending small shocks through her with each flash of its runes.

  She glanced back briefly. Already the ruined cart had receded, the strange flyers reduced to black lines and their riders merely specks. They certainly were not chasing; they had not even glanced up when she and the assassin rode by.

  Still, they frightened her.

  Then the road curved, dark evergreens intervening across the backtrail. She looked forward just as Trevere reined in.

  Her horse danced to a stop beside his, its unshod split-hooves clattering nervously on the cracked stone of the road. Trevere cast Lark a glance, then squinted into the forest, tension evident in the set of his shoulders.

  “C’mon, say something,” said Lark. “Why’d we run away?”

  The assassin held up a hand for silence. Lark closed her mouth and peered where he was peering.

  The forest bracketed them on both sides, its edges thick with briar that had gone brown and leafless in anticipation of snow. Suddenly Lark felt the chill that adrenaline had staved off; to her southern blood, this already felt like deep winter, and her Illanic clothes were not up to the task. She wrapped her arms around herself and eyed the bushes, not sure she wanted to know what had his attention.

  “There,” he said suddenly, pointing toward a spot in the woods. “Call him.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Your goblin.”

  “Rian?” She peered into the darkness, shading her eyes. In their sudden flight, she had almost forgotten him, but now the fear she had first felt when they crested the Rift and came upon the carnage returned. “Rian!” she shouted, unable to spot him in the tangle.

  “You can tell him I won’t harm him,” said Trevere, and she twitched; it had not occurred to her that he might use her as bait. She glared at Trevere and the man sat back in his saddle, frowning, but did not pursue her when she nudged her horse toward the trees.

  “Rian!” she called again. A greyish flicker caught her eye and she focused on it, just barely making out the goblin’s crouched shape through a screen of thorny branches. The Sky horse shied as it caught his scent and she patted its maneless neck.

  “C’mon, baby,” she said to the goblin. “It’s all right. We’re getting out of here.”

  Rian mewled in the darkness, a fearful sound that made her eyes water. Then, reluctantly, he crept out from the brush and leapt like a jumping spider, impacting the saddlebags and scuttling up to cling to her chest as the horse danced nervously.

  Lark cupped the goblin’s bald head between her breasts, elated and relieved and still frightened. Trevere stayed silent, but beneath her hands the goblin shivered terribly. A glance over his harness showed her the crusted rips in the cloth and she sucked in a breath and tugged gingerly at them. They parted to show heaving ribs under blood-smeared skin, but no wound. Just a fading welt.

  “You’re all right?” she whispered in one notched ear.

  “Ys,” said the goblin into her tunic. “Spirit fix, fix.”

  “What spirit? The dark one?”

  “We should go,” said Trevere, and spurred his horse onward. The runes on her ribbon glimmered and she nudged her horse after him, biting back vitriol.

  “Why follow?” Rian whispered, peeking up.

  Privately she wondered that too. The hunt was over. The Gold mages had taken Cob away. Why were they ri
ding east instead of returning to Illane? She was in no rush to be dragged before the Crimson Army, but she had faith that her people would rescue her somehow.

  Unless the shadowbloods intended to hang her out to dry. They had never objected outright to Cayer's control of the kai, but she knew they liked to keep things in the family.

  “I don’t know,” she murmured. Ahead, Darilan’s steed picked up the pace, and she bent lower over the neck of her own to keep the cold wind from blasting the goblin. “I have a stupid mission and I’m tied to him. He said he wouldn’t hurt you but don’t you let him get close. He’s crazy. Just run away if he comes after you.”

  Rian made a sound of protest and gripped her tighter, his long fingers and toes locked into her clothes. Her eyes watered again, not just from the wind. He would try to protect her; he always had, even when he was just a newt. No bigger than a beer-stein and he had bitten a man’s finger off for feeling her up. Cayer had pitched a fit but Lark had been privately grateful to not have to shank the man herself. She was a Shadow agent, not one of the prostitutes they protected—never mind this current assignment. No one had dared punish Rian either. In those early days, he had been their one good solid link to the reclusive world of the undercities.

  Now we’re both expendable, she thought sourly. Me for being unblooded, him for not being our only goblin anymore. What a difference a few years makes.

  She had racked her brain for a way to get out of this alive, but nothing had survived the twin hammers of logic and disgust. Seducing Voorkei could have worked if she had made herself go to him, but there had been too much running and now the chance was gone. Seducing Trevere was not an option; after glimpsing what he was beneath his clothes, her skin crawled at the very thought. He had managed to wash the stink off but he was still a monster.

  As for Lieutenant Sarovy, the man seemed entirely too sharp for that sort of trick.