Silwren answered with the faintest of smiles. “Not exactly.” Slender hands came up, emerging from her blue-black cloak. Tendrils of violet wytchfire ignited from thin air, coursing through her wrists, fluttering without smoke or sound.
Rowen had seen wytchfire before, but the sight still made him jump. He heard Jalist swear. Rowen was glad he had a firm grip on the reins, or else Snowdark might have bolted.
Silwren raised her hands over her head, fingers moving. Her hood spilled back to reveal more platinum curls. Her mount seemed unperturbed. More and more wytchfire, bright and hot, exuded from Silwren’s palms, though it left her skin untouched. Jalist swore again. The growing mass of wytchfire broadened and became more concave until it swirled over their heads like one of those ridiculous umbrellas used by the rich noblewomen of Ivairia.
Silwren lowered her wrists. The wytchfire continued to float over them. “It will keep us dry, at least,” she said easily.
Rowen had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Thank you.” He wondered if his own expression bore the same unease that he saw on Jalist’s face. The Dwarr had not known Silwren as long as Rowen had, but everyone knew that Silwren should not make frequent use of her magic. By her own admission, she was no longer a mere Shel’ai. The machinations of her old allies had effectively turned her into a Dragonkin, enhancing her magic so that its mere presence crackling through her bloodstream threatened to drive her mad. Yet there she was, casually employing abilities she’d spent months avoiding.
Maybe she’s just getting better at controlling them. Rowen eyed the wytchfire hovering over them and hoped that was the case.
“Don’t be afraid, Human,” she said. “This small expenditure is not enough to turn me into another Nightmare.”
Small expenditure? Rowen remembered the Nightmare—another Shel’ai impossibly twisted and ruined, left raving mad by the magic forced into his body. He wondered if Silwren had read his thoughts. She must have. He shook himself, forcing his mind to clear. He felt both Jalist’s and Silwren’s eyes on him, but he focused only on the distant thunderheads. “We ride on.”
True to Silwren’s word, her hovering umbrella of wytchfire kept them relatively protected from the storm, causing all raindrops that struck it to hiss ominously. Yet the thunder rumbled terribly all around them, making controlling the horses increasingly difficult. Rowen eventually ordered them to stop and wait out the storm. Silwren’s horse seemed to be faring far better than the others.
Can’t be a coincidence. She’s using magic to calm the beast—that means she’s using magic continuously. He’d never seen her do that before. He checked her expression, but she seemed calm. The hovering dome of wytchfire stopped when they did.
“My magic can soothe your horses, too, if you wish to press on,” she offered.
Rowen forced a smile. “No need. We could use the rest.” He might have said more, but the thunderclaps drowned him out.
The group made camp, working in the surreal glow of wytchfire. Rowen worried that the glare might attract other travelers or even bandits, though he suspected they would run for their lives when they got close enough to see what was causing it. When Jalist complained of cold, lamenting their lack of firewood, Silwren gestured, and a campfire wrought of sorcery appeared in their midst, burning without any visible source of fuel.
Jalist jumped. “Gods, woman, you should warn us before you do that!”
Silwren made no answer, and Rowen could not tell in the flickering light if she was smiling or frowning. Rowen stretched his hands toward the wytchfire, which was warm enough. Its violet tendrils matched the color of the dome hovering over them. Still, he fought the impulse to shrink away from the ghostly campfire. He reminded himself that, like other Shel’ai, Silwren seemed able to control whether or not her wytchfire harmed those it touched. Rowen was not about to thrust his hand into the fire, though.
“You seem more willing to use your magic lately,” he began carefully. He made a show of warming his hands. “In Lyos, you barely used it at all.” He risked a glance at her.
Silwren seemed neither perturbed nor surprised by his comment. “I am gaining more control over it. You need not be concerned.”
He caught a hint of rebuke in her melodic Sylvan accent. He knew he should let the matter drop. “Sorry, can’t help it. El’rash’lin said that use of the magic could drive you mad—or cripple you, like it did him. And the Nightmare. I’d… like to avoid that, if we could.”
She flinched at the mention of her dead friends. “I know what he said. But each of the Shel’ai exposed to the power of Namundvar’s Well responded differently. My mere appearance proves that.” She paused. “I am getting stronger.”
Rowen could not argue. El’rash’lin had been badly disfigured by the magic leached from the Light and was covered head to toe in ghastly sores and scars. By comparison, Silwren had remained beautiful. Just a few wrinkles around her eyes made her seem to have aged years overnight. But her personality seemed mostly the same.
But how would I know that? I barely even know her! Still, he knew that wasn’t exactly true. In the jails of Lyos, in an effort to help him understand their plight, El’rash’lin had used magic to share minds with Rowen. Many of El’rash’lin’s memories still echoed in Rowen’s brain as though they were his own. If he concentrated, he could remember Silwren as a child—wide eyed, staring at clouds—as though he had known her then himself.
Not for the first time that afternoon, Rowen shook off his thoughts. The last thing he needed was another life when he could barely manage his own. “Maybe I’m the one being driven mad,” he muttered. Jalist’s scowl told him he’d been thinking out loud. He blushed and turned to Silwren. “Forgive—”
She waved him off. “Ten thousand apologies are already called for in this war. Be assured, yours are far down on the list.” Nevertheless, she stood and walked away. Her dome of wytchfire did not follow, though the campfire she’d conjured began to dwindle. The downpour soaked her cloak, making it cling to her. Before he lost sight of her, Rowen thought she looked small, almost childlike, and afraid.
Jalist grunted with disapproval. “Locke, I’d appreciate you not antagonizing a woman who could turn our cocks into candlewicks with a wave of her hand.”
Rowen faced the Dwarr, biting back rage. “She won’t hurt us. You know that. She’s saved my life. I trust her.”
Jalist raised one eyebrow. “Is that why you almost pulled steel on her a moment ago?”
Rowen blinked, realized he was holding his sword hilt. “I wasn’t angry. She just… startles me sometimes. Her eyes—”
“That, I understand. But why is she even with us?”
“She’s keeping me alive, helping me get to the Wytchforest in one piece. And no offense, Jalist Hewn, but she’s a prettier traveling companion than you are.”
“Fair enough. But has it occurred to you that your chief bodyguard is a wytch the other Sylvs will likely fetter with arrows the moment they see her? She’s using you, Locke! No way a Shel’ai banished from the Wytchforest would go back unless it was in her own interest to do so.”
Rowen was quiet for a moment. “I forget how much you hate them.”
“The Sylvs?” Jalist shrugged. “Never met any from the Wytchforest. Met a few of those Wyldkin, though. No sense of humor, but they seemed like a decent lot.”
“I don’t mean the Sylvs, and you know it. I meant the Shel’ai.”
“Same thing.”
“Not really.” Rowen changed tactics, eager to reduce conflict as much as he was to soothe his old friend. “You fought with them. You fought for the Shel’ai and the Throng… or have you forgotten? And as I recall, you tried to get me to do the same.”
“I was paid to fight for the Throng. When was the last time you really cared two coppers for the man renting your sword arm?”
Rowen thought of Hráthbam, the dark-skinned Soroccan merchant who had not only befriended him but also given him Knightswrath in the first place. �
��Don’t worry about Silwren. She’s nothing like Fadarah. We can trust her.”
Jalist scoffed. “Trusting a Shel’ai is like trusting a tiger just because it purrs. If you had half a brain, you’d have learned that by now.”
Rowen smiled faintly. “Well, I never was very bright.”
“Or willing to back down from a fight. That’s your weakness. You’re as hotheaded as your idiot brother.”
Rowen winced, and his hand moved of its own accord, touching his sword. His fingertips traced Knightswrath’s dragonbone hilt. He remembered his sword quivering when he drove it through his brother’s neck. He remembered his own name bubbling from his brother’s lips before he fell as a single exhalation of blood and gratitude.
“Kayden was your friend. He died on my sword. You know that. Don’t talk about him like—”
“Not all killing is murder. Some deaths are a kindness. From what I hear, Kayden’s was one of them. Or would you rather he live on like he was?”
Cursed, crazed, forced to murder on behalf of the Shel’ai like some kind of trained hound… “The Shel’ai made him that way. It wasn’t his fault. They tortured him—”
“Yes, they did.”
Rowen sighed. “Some of them, I mean. Silwren and El’rash’lin didn’t have any part of that. And I think some of the others objected, too.”
“But they still went through with it.” Jalist waved him off before he could reply. “Point is, Locke, they did what they did. No sense denying it. I’m not one to defend those bastards, but if you want to assign blame for Kayden, save half for your brother. He let them make him their thrall. So he gets half the blame, and the Shel’ai get the other half. You get what’s left.” Jalist uncorked his wineskin and took a drink. “Who knows? Maybe there’s even something to what she said about the Light.”
“About it guiding our actions?” Rowen snorted derisively. “If the Light fated me to be reunited with my own brother only so that I could set him free by killing him”—he turned away, stung by his own words—“then maybe I’m on the wrong side.”
Jalist stretched out on the ground. “Stop your gods-damned brooding! You’re finally an Isle Knight. Aren’t you supposed to be a pillar of moral certainty now?”
Rowen scoffed. “I used to think that’s how the Knights were. Then I spent some time with them.”
“Yet you wear their tabard.”
Rowen glanced down at his armor again. He shrugged.
Jalist laughed quietly. “Exactly how far is this Wytchforest, anyway?”
“A week. That’s what Silwren says, anyway.” The Wytchforest was one of the few realms of Ruun that he’d never visited, though he’d had little choice. Some people, like the Dwarrs or the nomadic horsemen of Quesh, could be unfriendly to foreigners. Others, like the Dhargots, tried to convince them to join their empire and partake in one of their bloodthirsty campaigns. Then there were the Sylvs. In the Wytchforest, foreigners were simply peppered with arrows and left to rot in the sun.
Rowen hoped his group would fare better than that. True, he had Knightswrath, but he would have little chance to invoke the Oath of Kin if the Sylvs killed him on sight. “We’ll have to stop somewhere along the way and resupply. Hesod isn’t far. Wasn’t there a blond boy you fancied there a few years back?”
Jalist laughed. “Cornflower hair, skin as soft as a woman’s. If I remember right, you had your eye on some pretty, big-rumped lass you tried to talk out of joining the Iron Sisters.” He glanced around at the storm. “Maybe they’re even still alive.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
Jalist shrugged. “Fadarah never went that far south. But the Dhargots might have. If so, what those bastards will do to the Iron Sisters…”
“It’s a long ways from Dhargoth to Hesod. The Dhargots might just be focusing on the northern cities for now.”
“How about Atheion?”
Jalist opened his mouth, but another massive clap of thunder rolled over them, punctuated by a vehement splash of lightning. Rowen jumped, reaching out to catch Snowdark’s reins and soothe the animal before it could run off. Jalist did the same with his mount, cursing all the while. Both men gazed up at Silwren’s umbrella of wytchfire. Rowen figured they were wondering the same thing: would a bolt of lightning pierce it and kill them? “If we do run into the Dhargots, it’ll be good to have Silwren with us.”
“Maybe. Troubles follow that woman like they follow you. Gods, Kayden used to say that you drew disasters like shit draws flies!”
Kayden again. “Then maybe you should be rid of us. You might live longer.”
Jalist snorted. “Between bandits and my bad luck, I’d never make it all the way back to Tarator—even if they’d have me, which they won’t. So I may as well see where this goes.”
The storm was worsening, almost completely veiling the midday sun behind bruise-colored clouds. He glanced westward, in the direction Silwren had walked. He thought he saw her statue-still form: a faint shadow cloaked in rain. He could not tell if she was facing them. He shuddered, realizing that no matter how far away she was, she might very well be able to hear their every word.
They set out again as soon as the storm cleared. The smell of rain filled the air, along with a faint mist that made the plains appear to be steaming in the afternoon sun. Rowen’s spirits rose. But they did not ride far before he was forced to call a halt. Already, something else had replaced the fresh smell of rain. He scowled at the western sky, noting a dark smear on the horizon. He turned to Jalist. “Is that what I think it is?”
“If you mean the dark chariots of Fohl, come to carry off our enemies, probably not.” Jalist touched the shaft of his long axe. “If you mean smoke, yes.”
Rowen turned to Silwren, remembering stories about the famed sight and hearing of Sylvs. “I don’t have a spyglass, and your eyes are better than ours. What do you see?”
Silwren was quiet for a moment. Instead of leaning forward in the saddle as Rowen and Jalist had done, she closed her eyes. When she opened them a moment later, she stared straight ahead. “A city, burning.”
Jalist swore. “Hesod?”
“If that’s what you call it.”
“Is it under siege?” Rowen touched his sword hilt, resisting the urge to ask if and how she would be able to answer his question.
“The siege is finished. I see smoke pouring over the walls. In front of the city, I see… hundreds of people stripped naked, mostly women, impaled on spears.” Despite her dispassionate tone, Silwren trembled.
Rowen and Jalist exchanged worried looks.
Jalist said, “Sounds like our old friends from the north, all right.”
Rowen stared at the horizon for a moment. “We’ll have to go southwest,” he said finally. “We’ll avoid the Dhargots then reach the Wytchforest by skirting the Noshan Valley. Won’t delay us more than a few days.”
Jalist’s dark eyes narrowed. “Unless we get our skulls axed in! Nosh isn’t the friendliest place on Ruun, you know.”
Rowen scratched his beard. Even though he’d never been to Nosh—including Atheion, its famous City-on-the-Sea—he’d heard a little about it during his travels. “Noshans are sailors and goatherds. They won’t trouble us.”
“I’m not talking about the Noshans who live around Atheion. I’m talking about those damn wildmen who live in the mountains. Supposed to be as mad as dragonpriests and as cruel as Dhargots.”
Rowen scratched at his beard. “A few thousand Dhargots or a few hundred barbarians…” And behind us, Shel’ai and Isle Knights! Gods, how did I get so many enemies?
“Welcome to Ruun,” Jalist snorted.
“I can get us past the Dhargots,” Silwren offered.
Jalist tapped the shaft of his long axe. “How’s that?”
Silwren faced Rowen. “I can blind them to our passage. We can ride right past the city, and they’ll never see us.” She trembled faintly as she spoke.
Silwren’s new unsettling eagerness to use her magic sent a c
hill down Rowen’s spine. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. If something goes wrong—”
“El’rash’lin gave his life, Knight. He died for you, as much as anyone. It’s time I did my part. If I say I can get you past the city unharmed, then I can.” Silwren’s violet eyes flared as she spoke.
Rowen resisted the urge to reach for Knightswrath. “Something will go wrong. Something always goes wrong.” He relaxed his voice. “I trust you. I do. But you dying right now to keep me alive just means I’ll die a little later. I need your help, not your sacrifice.”
Silwren smiled faintly but said nothing.
“We go south.” Rowen turned his horse.
The others fell in behind him. As he rode, Rowen thought of the hundreds of Hesodi dragged in front of the city, stripped naked, then impaled and left to endure a slow, agonizing death in the baking sun. He’d seen such things before. For a moment, he imagined himself riding to the victims’ rescue, Knightswrath gleaming in the sunlight, an army of Knights at his back. He pushed the thought from his mind.
CHAPTER TWO
CAPTAIN OF THE SHAL’TIAR
Even from halfway across Brai’yl Run, the stark grassy swath that separated the Ash’bana Plains from the looming Wytchforest beyond, Essidel could smell the reek. At least, he thought he could. He reminded himself that the distance was too far even for Sylvan senses, but he had been fighting Olgrym three fourths of his life, long enough to be all too familiar with their grisly ritual of painting themselves with blood and dung before battles.
He felt his pulse quicken and that familiar knot of fear. Even from such a distance, they looked like giants…
Giant as trees before the axe, he told himself, reciting the ancient phrase often intoned by the Shal’tiar before battle. He steadied himself and counted.
Counting Olgrym was not easy—they moved in a broad, heaving tide of malice and muscle—but he estimated at least a hundred of them. The main host was still farther east, clashing with General Seravin and trying to muscle past the stronghold of Que’ahl. The horde before him was just an upstart party sent to test Sylvan mettle.
Knightswrath (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 2) Page 3
