"They used to be fearless," Dante said. "Do they understand that's the weapon that killed their master?"
"What they understand is how terrifying I look."
Blays shrank the spear to the form of a dull rod. The few Blighted scattered across the woods kept their distance as Dante led the progression onward, south and west toward the far mountains of Gallador Rift.
He kept his undead scouts aloft at all times, but he didn't see any further trouble that day. He filled the time by explaining to every one of his nethermancers how to harvest plants to grow tall, then giving them quick lessons whenever the procession stopped for a break. Only a few could pick up the trick right away, and only a few of those few looked like they'd be any good at it, but considering that he, Gladdic, and Winden were the only others who could do so, he'd take any help he could get.
They made camp in the forest. The wolves were already howling, which made Dante wonder if you could eat them. As soon as he was finished giving orders, he retired to his tent and withdrew the fist-sized white gemstone from the pouch he kept around his neck. It was the only remains the Eiden Rane had left behind when he died, and though it hadn't so much as blinked or wiggled since then, Dante felt a constant dread that something inside it was working in silence—maybe to restore the lich, or maybe to some other end he couldn't even dream of.
He sat on the end of his bedroll and set the gem on the dirt. Its many facets were so polished he could see vague reflections of himself within them. He surrounded it with his mind and attempted to enter the nether within it—but either it was blocking him, or there was no nether within it, for it was impenetrable.
He tried again, this time with the ether. The results were no different. It was like running up against a steel door. Except he could blast his way through a steel door. His past efforts to destroy the gem hadn't even scratched it.
He futzed and fiddled with it some more, but nothing he tried lent him any insight. Nor was there any mention of such an object in the Book of What Lies Beyond the Land of Cal Avin. In different times he might have dropped it into the middle of the ocean, or better yet, sailed to the Plagued Islands and pitched it into a volcano, but he didn't exactly have time for that at the moment.
Meanwhile, he would have sworn that as he gazed down on it, it was gazing back at him.
~
When morning rolled around, Dante met with the handful of nethermancers capable of harvesting and set to work. A team of laborers had already scraped a swath of ground clear of snow and scattered grains of wheat across it, leaving Dante and the others free to get right to work. They poured nether into the earth, coaxing the grains into unfurling and sprouting up into the cold, bright air.
Winden frowned. "The seeds, they don't want to grow."
"At least they're doing better than they were in Narashtovik," Dante muttered. "Maybe it's the weather."
With much effort, they grew the plants until the heads of the wheat budded with grain; last, their color ripened from healthy green to an inviting gold. But not all the stalks followed this course. A small part of them, perhaps one in twenty, shriveled and turned a spotty gray.
A thought tickled Dante's mind. "After you're done cutting, throw those ones out," he told the laborers as they readied their scythes. "In fact, make it the first thing you do."
They worked quickly, breathing in an audible rhythm as they mowed their way through the field. Strange to see men cutting grain in the dead of winter. He had the feeling it wouldn't be the strangest thing he'd see in days ahead.
The laborers gathered up the harvest and hauled it to a set of wagons where another set of workers would separate the kernels. All in all, the process barely cost them any traveling time whatsoever.
Which was good, because even the nearest reaches of Gallador waited a couple hundred miles away, and Wending, if that was their final destination, was even further yet.
It was another quiet day, broken up only when one of their foragers returned with a grouse or a hare. While it was nice to have a bit of peace after so many months of ceaseless struggle, this had the unfortunate side effect of giving Dante plenty of time to dwell on the possibility that he was making a giant mistake by leaving the city. One that would, after all their long history of struggle and rebirth, at last bring an end to the people of Narashtovik.
The following morning, as they finished their work with the wheat, Gladdic approached him. "Have you given thought to what we will do if the people of Gallador want no part of us?"
"Why would they do that?" Dante said. "We've been allies for years now."
"The Eiden Rane burned many lands on his way to yours. They might lack the food to share. And unless Ka's warning was mere bluff, by the time we reach them, they might be suffering the punishments of the gods as well."
"What are you actually asking me here? If I'd attack them and take their stores from them?"
"Just so."
"What do you think?"
"That you will deny it now," Gladdic said. "But also that if Gallador attempts to turn us away, your answer here will prove optimistic, if not a lie."
Dante was tempted to ask him what his point was, but decided to not care instead.
They resumed their way through the forest. Snow trickled from the sky to dust the needles of the pines. It was serene, in its way, and Dante was trying to appreciate it as such when a terrified woman dashed up to him through the snow.
"My lord." Her face was splotchy and red and her eyes were like two trapped birds. "Forgive me, my lord. Forgive—you must help him. You must help my husband!"
Dante shifted in the saddle. "If there's been an accident, one of my monks will be—"
She shook her head, dislodging a pair of tears. "Please! Please!"
He was about to rebuke her for presuming too much. But everyone in his city knew that if you had a common injury or malady, you were supposed to request aid from a monk. The fact she'd come to him meant that whatever was afflicting her husband was uncommon—and perhaps altogether new.
"Bring me to him," he said.
The woman spun about and ran back along the tracks she'd left in the snow. Dante moved his horse after her. They were dashing along a column of tens of thousands of people and countless heads turned to watch him pass.
"What's your name?" Dante said.
"Tera," the woman said over her shoulder.
"What's happened to your husband?"
"It was so sudden. He's just ahead."
A wail floated over the constant shuffle of feet. A cluster of people had withdrawn from the column to stand in the snow. They ringed a man lying on his back on a blanket. His right arm was curled above his body, twitching and jerking. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, which he was grinding so hard it was audible over the murmurs and sobs of the crowd.
And all of his veins—in his forehead, his neck, and in what had once been the whites of his eyes—had gone a dark and gruesome green.
"Get back," Dante said. They obeyed. He summoned the shadows to his hands and sent his mind into the nether within the man's body. "Tera. What happened to him?"
"Nothing—one minute he was fine, then the next he was grabbing my arm, could barely walk—"
The man spasmed from head to toe. Dante gritted his teeth and delved into his veins. He thought he'd find them full of venom or poison. What he found was twisting green threads.
"Help him!" Tera shouted. "Help him please!"
Dante hesitated longer, trying to remember if he'd ever treated something like this in any of the thousands of people he'd healed over the years. The man was still jolting about; blood dribbled out of his nose.
Well, he'd just have to figure it out as he went along. Dante sent the nether racing through the man's veins, attacking the strange green strands within them.
The patient gave one last hard jerk, then went rigid, relaxing slowly. His eyes flew open. He lifted his head and reached for Dante's cloak. "Get them out of me. Get them out—"
&nb
sp; His head yanked back. His mouth opened wide. Squiggling green strands burst forth from his throat.
2
The strands writhed and lifted like worms. They were far larger than the ones Dante had seen in his veins. Those had only been visible through use of the nether, but these were as thick as yarn, grasping and flailing. More snaked from the man's nose and the corners of his eyes while others burrowed forth from his veins.
People started screaming. Dante had to stop himself from joining them. Worms slapped themselves to the ground and dragged the still-writhing man toward him. Dante swore and jumped back, gathering more shadows. The man gagged and coughed.
Dante slashed the nether through the worms. They fell to the ground like heaps of green noodles. The severed portions squirmed in agony, but the stumps flowed forward, regrowing themselves as quickly as Winden could harvest a seed into a tree. Clusters of them punched into the earth and pulled their host forward while others strained to reach Dante, waving their ends in tight circles. Trails of blood streaked the snow behind them.
Dante hacked into them once more. Severed pieces scattered the ground, but just as before, the remaining strands grew longer, exploding forward. The man's eyes were open, staring, unblinking, arms dragging limply over the earth.
Dante brought more nether to his hands. Instead of attacking the strands directly, he sent it into the air above the corpse, forming it into a black cloud. A clump of strands drew back and whipped itself at him; he spun sideways, staggering away. He caught a whiff of fish.
He concentrated on the cloud. A column of pale fire whooshed downward from it, enveloping the strands and what was left of their host. Something shrieked, inhuman in sound. Perhaps that was just the steam.
He let it burn for a good while. When the smoke cleared, nothing was left of the green strands but lines of gray ash.
~
An hour later, Tera still hadn't calmed down. Dante was sympathetic—she'd just watched her husband get consumed by parasites, then get incinerated—but for those exact same reasons, he needed to question her.
Just as he was about to summon his alchemist for something to drug her with, the wagon she was riding in went silent. He opened the rear flap. She was seated on a cushion staring dully. She was a young woman, younger than himself, but the elegant boniness of her face now looked skeletal and ancient.
Dante made a bit of small talk. After getting a read on her, he said, "Can I ask you some questions?"
"Yes, lord."
"Can you think of anything that might have caused this? Anything unusual that happened earlier today?"
"No, lord."
"Was he foraging at all? Could he have picked up a…bad mushroom?"
She'd been staring past him, but now looked him in the eye. "What kind of mushroom would do something like that?"
"None that I know of," Dante said softly. "But I've seen stranger things. Did he have any enemies? Someone who might poison him?"
"Who but a man like you would be able to poison him like that?"
"I don't know. I'm just trying to rule out some possibilities."
"It wasn't a mushroom. It wasn't some enemy of his, either. It's the curse."
"The curse?"
"The curse of the gods. For what we did to them."
Something went empty inside his chest. He asked her several more questions, but none of her answers struck him as unusual or a potential lead. Her husband had woken up that day as a normal man. Then, a few hours later, he'd been devoured from within.
He thanked her and left.
The first thing he did was summon Gladdic. The old man listened in silence as Dante told him everything that had happened.
"You've made it your life's work to learn to command horrible creatures," Dante finished. "Have you ever seen or heard of something like this?"
"I have," Gladdic said. "It will not surprise you to learn that it came in the deep swamps of Tanar Atain. There, I was warned of the noki ana: a demon composed of worms that consumes the one it possesses from the inside out."
"How did you kill it?"
"I never encountered one. But it was said that it could not be killed nor exorcised. Once it manifested, it would only depart from the land after it had eaten its fill."
"Did they say where it came from? Or how it could be avoided?"
"It could be avoided by avoiding its territory. That is also where it came from—when its reaches were trespassed, it came forth to trespass the bodies of the living. But this thing would not be the noki ana. Not if you were able to kill it."
"If it wasn't dead, it was doing a damn good job imitating a pile of ashes," Dante muttered. "If the gods really are the ones that did this, that means it will happen again. And that means we're in trouble. I couldn't do anything to fight the worms. Hitting them with the nether only seemed to make them stronger."
Gladdic shrugged his high shoulders. "Many enemies that seem insurmountable on first encounter soon prove no great threat. All things are flawed: and all things that are flawed may be fought and destroyed."
Dante squinted at him. "Have you been possessed? You're much more chipper than the Gladdic I know."
He left to consult with the members of the Council. The ones that had survived, anyway. Olivander had been killed and Somburr had disappeared completely. Which almost certainly meant that he was dead, for there was no sane reason for him to be in hiding—unless he'd done something unthinkable like aid the lich in secret.
Then again, the spymaster's thoughts had never been the peak of reason. If he'd run off, it was likely for reasons only he could understand.
The Council had little to offer except strategy. Since it was almost certain the worms could spread from one person to another, the worms would be burned as Dante had done. If the host didn't survive, the body would be burned with them.
He made no official announcement to the people. But as Dante rode past them on his way back to the head of the column, the way they hunched together and murmured told him that rumors were passing among them like the plague. He supposed he could address them then, but he wouldn't have anything to tell them. Besides, it was good for them to be a little afraid. They'd be more likely to listen to him when it was time for him to speak.
He feared that time was closer than any of them wanted it to be.
~
As soon as he heard the scream, he knew exactly what it was.
He flung himself from his tent. It was the middle of the night and ether flared throughout the camp as the priests lit up the commotion. People were sitting up from their bedrolls, staring in the direction of the cries, but not a single one of the citizens dared head toward them.
A globe of ether glowed a hundred yards ahead of Dante. There, silhouettes stood in a wide ring around a robed figure and a man lying prone. Dozens of thin strands writhed from the body toward the priest. The priest limped backwards and lifted her hand to the sky. A spiraling bolt of fire pounded over the host and its worms, blackening both.
Seeing the priest limping, Dante was afraid she'd been hurt by the green strands, but it turned out to be Merria; they'd managed to heal the most grievous wounds she'd suffered while battling the Blighted at the Citadel, but she'd been left with a permanent limp.
"What," she panted, "in the twice-baked fuck was that?"
She'd tried to use the ether both to heal the victim and to destroy the worms, but her results had been just the same as Dante's. The victim was an old woman, and according to her son, she hadn't departed from the column once that day nor been in anyone's company but his own.
"Dante," Merria said quietly once they were through. "What is happening here?"
"It's what Ka warned us of," he said. "I don't know where it's coming from. I don't know if we can stop it. But it's going to keep happening until we do."
Back in his tent, he faded in and out of sleep, waiting for the next set of screams to pull him from bed so he could witness the impotent burning of another body. Dawn was gray and dim,
smothered by thick clouds. There hadn't been any new possessions overnight—at least none that had made themselves visible yet—but the camp was quiet, even sullen.
"You can hardly blame them," Blays said after Dante had observed this. "We just stuck the White Lich's head on a pike. Saved the whole world. Right now, we should be feasting and drinking until the brewers can retire and the cooks can all buy estates. Instead we're trudging hundreds of miles through the snow and getting eaten alive by demon-worms. It's a wonder they're not all stampeding to the nearest river to drown themselves in."
Dante gazed across the crowds. Aware, suddenly, that they weren't all going to make it to Gallador.
Four more died that day. Seven died the day after that. There was no one thing they all had in common. The condition claimed both men and women; those in the prime of their youth and those at the twilight of their years; the chronically sickly and those who hadn't been ill in years.
But in every case, the outcome was the same.
Dante attended most of them himself. Hunting for solutions. After failing multiple times to get any results, he turned treatment of most of the possessions over to Gladdic or the members of his Council to see if they could fare any better. But there didn't seem to be any treatment to be found. Just eradication of the parasite and its host.
He walked onward in a state of constant dread. More and more people were falling sick and not only could they not cure it, but without knowing where it was coming from, there was nothing they could do to stop it from growing, either. There was nothing to stop him from being taken by it. Not unless he left them all behind and fled on his own through the wilds.
It was a thought he didn't want to have. Because once he had, it nibbled at the edges of his mind through every moment of the day.
They came to a stream, which brought them to a village. The commons were silent. No smoke rose from the chimneys. They didn't find any of the worms, but the corpses were all riddled with little holes, their faces caked with blood around the eyes and mouth and nose. Dante had them gathered into a pyre and burned them all.
The Twelve Plagues (The Cycle of Galand Book 7) Page 2
