Soul Sanctuary: Book Two Of The Spirit Shield Saga

by Susan Faw

  Cayden slid off and walked back to her. “I know what we need to do.”

  “I’m glad,” she said simply. “I will follow wherever you lead, Cayden.”

  Cayden smiled at Ziona, shoving his hands in his pockets. Brimstone nudged him hard in the back, pushing Cayden into Ziona. Cayden’s arms came up around her. Ziona laughed and hugged Cayden back. Brimstone tossed his head, as though saying, “Now, that’s better!”

  Cayden eyed Brimstone. “Don’t you start getting cheeky with me!” he growled in mock anger. Brimstone shook his head, curly mane flopping into his eyes. Cayden’s lips twitched with amusement.

  Cayden checked the position of the moon, which was sinking below the crown of the trees.

  “We need to get some more rest…if these great louts will let us. I would like to be on the trail as the sun rises.”

  As he and Ziona crawled back under their blankets and settled in, the Pegasuses wandered over to greet the horses. Cayden’s last thought as he drifted off was how happy Avery would be to see Moonbeam once again.

  Chapter 33

  The Second Doll

  MORDECAI WAITED UNTIL THE DEEP OF NIGHT to slip into the legion’s camp. As the guards neared the end of their shift, they stifled yawns behind hands. Their paced patrolling slowed as the night crept on. Keeping to the shadows, Mordecai drifted from one dark trunk to the next with each pass. Now fifty feet of grass separated him from the comforting blackness of the nearest tent. He counted…sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven…and on the stamp of seventy, he ran, crouching low across the open space. He slid into the overhang of the tent, which turned out to house supplies for the horses, and paused, listening for any hint of alarm. Hearing none, he stealthily made his way toward the ornate tent located at the center of the camp. He avoided the low-burning firepits that dotted the landscape, and none saw him pass, night-blind by the flickering flames. His hand drifted to the breast of his robes. Yes, the package, his backup escape plan, was still there. He would use it, but only as a last resort, should his escape be…impeded.

  Alcina’s tent rose up out of the encampment, twice as large as any around it and heavily guarded. Like a moss-covered rock, it was draped in guards, sprouting here and there. It was separated by a cleared circle of trampled grass that left the tent isolated, even though it was surrounded by a legion full of men. The sounds of the encampment around it were muted, and the croaking of crickets filled the air.

  He paused, crouching down beside a tent at the edge of the circle and checked the placement of the guards. Two helmeted men stood at attention at the entrance to the tent, and Mordecai counted four others around the exterior; one leaned up against a tree, another lit a cigarette with a splinter of wood from a firepit. Two more played cards by the light of the low flames, and coins jingled as one laid out his wager.

  Mordecai pulled the stone from his pocket and clutched it in his right hand and closed his eyes. His lips moved, and a thin probe of spirit whispered up from the stone attuned to Cayden’s will. It drifted across the intervening space and then slipped past the guards and through the crack of the tent opening without attracting notice. He commanded the probe to explore the tent, searching for the doll that held Cayden’s will. The probe melted around the tent, searching until it paused beside a sleeping person. Cayden’s will pulsed, a strong throb that warmed the stone in Mordecai’s hand. Mordecai urged it to look for the second doll, and it moved on, wandering around the tent, but it could not find the doll. Frustrated, he recalled the wisp, opening his eyes to break the spell. He had not expected it to. Without the tie of a soul, there was nothing to sense. It was just a doll, after all.

  Mordecai made to stand. As he attempted to rise to his feet, he bumped into a solid object. Scarlet-slippered feet peeked from the hem of a grey, rough silk gown. Mordecai’s eyes travelled upward to meet Alcina’s victorious ones. In her hand, she held a doll, dressed in grey robes. Attached to its chin were several strands of beard, his beard. She picked up a long needle and locking her eyes on his, stabbed the doll in the chest. Pain shot through Mordecai, and he grabbed at his chest, his eyes widening and his mouth opened in a silent scream. His nerveless fingers dropped the stone clutched in them, and he toppled sideways, writhing on the ground while Alcina stepped around him, snapping her fingers to call her guards.

  “So,” she purred in a soft voice dripping with menace, “we meet again, Mordecai. This time, you will not escape. This time the only possible escape is death. It was useful to cut your hair all those years ago. I kept them, you see, as the mage promised me there was magic to be had in your graying locks.” She reached down with a knife and cut a strip of cloth free of the sleeve of his robes and draped it around the doll. “Your will is mine. Your soul is mine. You will obey and serve me until death releases you. But first, I will enjoy torturing you. Oh yes, this time I will find the time.” Her pitiless blue eyes stared down into his. “Finally, the will of a wizard is at my command.” With a predatory twist of red lips, she commanded, “Pick up this filth and carry him to my tent. I intend to have some fun with him. Gag him first. I do not want to disturb the rest of my troops.”

  The men bent down and shoved a soiled cloth into Mordecai’s mouth, tying it roughly behind his head then pulled back his arms, binding his wrists behind his back. They hauled him to his feet. Still bent double in pain, he sagged in their arms.

  Alcina withdrew the pin and scraped it along the chest of the doll. Mordecai groaned, as his chest registered the sensation of a sharp knife slicing across his chest. Blood bloomed under his shirt and trickled down, fine rivulets that quickly soaked through.

  Alcina was panting with pleasure as the blood blossomed on the grey robes. A powerful lust consumed her, flaring in her eyes as she called over her shoulders, as the guards hauled Mordecai into her tent. “Darius, attend me,” she purred, and followed the soldiers inside, the flap dropping back as the guards released it after she had passed.

  Darius grinned and, strutting like a prized peacock, followed his queen into the tent, already loosening the ties of his shirt, sweating with the heat of anticipation. He grinned at the jealous stares of his fellow guards. They should be jealous, he chuckled to himself. Oh yes, they should be jealous.

  Clearing the entrance of the tent, Darius saw that the guards had dumped the wizard on the gaudy carpet, so recently decorated by Cayden. He had laughed at his former friend, the “king” of Cathair reduced to a drooling puppet. Now he grinned at the old man, his queen’s nemesis, a rival she had fought her entire life. He walked up and kicked the old man in the stomach, and Mordecai jack-knifed around the blow, his air going out with a whoosh. He thought he heard something crack and shook his head. “He will not last long under torture. He is too old.” Darius spoke the words aloud as the guards left the tent, leaving just the three of them.

  Alcina placed the doll on the table beside her judgement chair, as he had come to think of it, and then sank down onto its overstuffed surface.

  Steepling her fingers, Alcina studied the wizard. He lay panting on the ground, groaning softly.

  “Well, Mordecai? You never did have any tolerance for torture. Do you remember the old days? When the Queen’s Guard went at you with those hot irons? You would faint as soon as the iron touched your skin, then I would have to wake you to heal yourself. It’s no fun torturing an unconscious person. I finally had to give up and forget my plans to extract information out of you. Instead, I left you in that dungeon to die. But you refused to, you stubborn old goat.” Her grim smile widened and her teeth gleamed, feral and deadly. “But with this doll, I can fine-tune it, can’t I?” she paused, but Mordecai did not answer. He could not answer. With a slippered toe, Alcina dragged the gag from his mouth and down onto his chin.

  “As much as I like seeing you bleed, that is hardly going to work with you, is it? No, the torture I intend for you is of a mental nature. You will not be able to shut it off or escape because it will be all in your head. I intend to force you to
listen to your friends screams as they die…at your own hand. When I eventually release your mind, you will kill yourself. It will not be of my doing or by my hand.”

  “You know that I have Cayden under the same control, or you would not have come here. You hoped to recover this.” She twitched a doll dressed like Cayden in front of his face, then tucked it back into a pocket in her skirt. “He did not escape. I set him and his seeker free. But he is still completely under my control. From where I send him, he will not return. He has a mission to complete that he has no knowledge of. It will be triggered when he reaches his destination. And then he will die, after he chokes that useless seeker to death. You will never see either of them again, wizard.”

  Mordecai straightened, fighting the pain of what felt like broken ribs and took a shallow, tentative breath. “Once again your delusions lead you into realms of impossibility. You cannot control me with that doll. I…will…not…submit!” he ground out through clenched teeth. “I will stop my own heart before I hurt either of those kids. And as for Cayden, he is stronger than you can possibly understand. He will find a way to undo the damage you have inflicted on him. You will lose again, Alcina.”

  Alcina reared up from her chair, her temper flashing to the boiling point, then ran at Mordecai. She snatched up the doll and stabbed the pin into the straw head. Mordecai’s temple exploded with pain. He screamed, clutching at his head, and collapsed to the floor, thrashing as crushing waves of pain washed over him from head to foot, so strong his toes curled in his boots. He cried out once more then stilled.

  Disgusted, Alcina tossed the doll back on the chair and stepping around the unconscious wizard, then grabbed Darius by the arm and dragged him unresistingly back into her private chambers.

  Bright red blood dripped from Mordecai’s right nostril and puddled on the floor under his right cheek. They left Mordecai on the floor in the spreading pool without a backward glance.

  Chapter 34

  Fates Align

  THE SCREAMS OF THE WOUNDED soared above the clang of metal on metal, a high-pitched counterpoint to the near rhythmic metronome of battle. The high mountain pass had opened into a sparse valley that clung to the side of the mountain, a saucer of greenery in a great stone cup. The verdant green was quickly turning to rust, as the churning of the horses’ hooves trampled the grasses and flowers. A metallic taste hung in the air as blood was spilled, the blood of men and horses mixing with the anxious odours of sweat and urine.

  Sharisha pulled her own short sword and dug her heels into the flanks of her mount. Her horse shot forward into the mix of Primordial warriors and legion soldiers. The men from the other side of the mountain were already blood-covered prior to the commencement of this surprise attack, and they’d hesitated before launching themselves out of the woods into battle. At first, she’d mistaken their wild shouts as cries of pain, rather than a war cry.

  But now, she fought for her life. Soldiers fell on every side of her, but Sharisha’s sole task was to protect the High Priestess, to whom she was bound. Her mount trampled two men trying to pull Marea out of her seat, and Sharisha stabbed a third through the throat as he grabbed the bridle of Marea’s mare. The man’s eyes widened in shock, and then he fell, slipping off the blade, hand frozen on the bridle, pulling the horse’s head down with his collapsing body. The horse snorted in fear and bucked, clearing more men from the rear. Sharisha reached over and pulled Marea off her mare onto the back of her horse, leaving the bucking mount to its crazed dance.

  Sharisha sawed on the reins. Marea gasped and slumped against her back. Bright crimson ran down the High Priestess’s arm, which encircled Sharisha’s waist. With a snarl, Sharisha reared her horse, forelegs flailing, bringing it down on the two men in front of her. Then, she dug in her heels once again and her horse shot forward, bowling over men like stones on a game board. She cleared the main circle of fighting and whipped her horse with the loose ends of her reins urging her mount to greater speed, focused on the resumption of the path ahead. Her only thought was to get Marea away from the battle to find a safe place to tend to her wounds. Sharisha glanced over her shoulder and saw Marea clinging grimly to her, eyes flashing with fury. Her arm bled freely, but it did not look to be a critical wound. Sharisha dashed down the curve in the road, the cries of the battle receding. Just as she reached the edge of the clearing before the relative safety of the woods, a man rose from the bushes. Triumph glittered in his narrowed eyes, and then he grinned, lips stretching into a victorious, toothy smile. Raising his bow, he drew, sighted, and released the arrow with one fluid movement.

  The impact was jarring, the arrow piercing Sharisha’s right breast and driving straight through. Were it not for the fact that Marea clutched her around Sharisha’s waist and held her upright, she would surely have tumbled from the saddle. Sharisha’s horse ran on into the trees, now completely out of control, as Sharisha could no longer feel the reins in her hands. She tried to take in a breath, but it was agony. She coughed and blood bubbled to her lips. Spots danced in her sight and she sighed. So, this is death, she thought, watching as the light of the world shrunk smaller and smaller until it vanished completely. I did want to see Avery one last time. There is something about that child.

  Sharisha slumped over the neck of her horse. A blue mist rose from her body and hung in the air, waiting to be claimed.

  ***

  Cyrus lowered his bow and watched the Primordial women ride off into the woods. A clear trail of blood splattered behind them, obvious even to the poorest of trackers, of which, he was not. He gathered his horse, tucking the bow back into its scabbard and then remounted, following the trail. He cared not if his men survived. He only wanted the High Priestess, and now she was his.

  He followed the trail for about half an hour, surprised to see that they had kept their saddle. He was sure he had killed the first woman, probably the High Priestess’s bodyguard by the way she had come to the woman’s defense. The High Priestess was also wounded. Would she stop to bury her guard, or would she shove the body aside and continue to flee? From what he knew of Primordial belief about the dead, he thought she would pause to offer prayers to the gods for the safe passage of the soul. How long she would pause, he was not sure, but it would afford him the time to kill her, if he was swift enough.

  Sure enough, ten minutes of hard riding brought him to an ice-cold glacial stream. The trail led straight toward it and stopped at the edge of the water. He dismounted beside a hastily built mound, and laid out in Primordial fashion was the dead seeker. She’d been buried in the loose sand of the river’s undercut bank, beneath a cairn of hastily scooped river rock, leaving her face uncovered, so that she could continue to commune with the spirits of the forest even in death. Her eyes were propped open, all the better to see the spirits when they paused to visit. The first of these ancient burial mounds he had come across had been in the foothills on a previous campaign, but he’d thought the bizarre practice had been long abandoned.

  He placed his hand on the dead woman’s forehead. The body was still warm. Cyrus shivered. How barbaric! These heathens never change. They are an anthill that should be ground underfoot and stamped out of existence. The Flesh Clans, at least, had adopted burning the bodies of the dead, if Alcina was to be believed, properly freeing the spirits from the imprisonment of the flesh, as was the way for those of Cathairian origins.

  His eyes left the mound and he walked around, searching for the new trail. Horse tracks entered the stream, but due to the thickness of the undergrowth which hugged the shore, the path was obvious. Crushed ferns provided a guidepost, and he picked out the continuance of the trail on the other side of the stream. The woman was alone now and easy pickings. He remounted and left the dead woman behind. She was nothing. His true prize still ran, and he would not rest till he caught her. With her as his prisoner, he would have all the bargaining chips he needed, especially if he caught up to the other woman they’d been following. He suspected it was their prisoner, escaped
from the fiery hut. He would deliver two important gifts for his mistress of shadow. First, he would take this one, and then go after the other. If his men caught up to him, so be it. If not…well, they were a stupid lot and not worthy of accompanying him. Eventually, he would have had to dispose of them for learning what he was up to. He would overthrow Alcina or he would die trying. Too long he had laboured in the queen’s shadow, while the goddess whispered to him of the rewards he would receive if he were the one to hand over the prophesied children. Alcina’s blundering had cost them the boy. They had had him chained in the dungeon, for spirit’s sake! Abruptly, Cyrus jerked his thoughts back to the search at hand. Focus. I need to recover the woman. That is what I need to do. With that grim thought, he booted his horse into motion and trotted swiftly down the trail, marking the dots of blood that occasionally dropped onto the forest floor.

  ***

  Marea clutched at the bandage slipping down her arm. She’d wrapped it hastily with cloth torn from her underskirt and tied it off, but the knot had loosened with the hauling of the rocks she had used to bury Sharisha, and she had lost valuable time. Sharisha had been a loyal seeker though, deserving of the cairn for her final journey. She had protected her and honoured her in life, and now the bond had driven her to protect Marea from certain death. Sharisha deserved to be given the Welcoming Ceremony, the sacred sharing of the soul with the gods, and so Marea had halted beside the stream to let the horse drink, clean her wound, and bury the seeker.

  The cut by the blade was deep but not long; however, it was jagged and located in the crook of her elbow. Every last movement of the arm opened the wound afresh, so that it continuously bled. It needed stitching, something she could not take the time to do, and impossible while jouncing on the back of a horse.